>Inherits a small budget surplus
>Pledges to eliminate the national debt by the 2011 budget cycle
>Reverses course; DOUBLES the debt and wastes money on shit like No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D
Why did conservatives tolerate this? Why didn't they impeach Bush once Bush revealed himself as a liar?
The Bush Admin had huge stakes in weapons contractors, private military and oil
Well yeah, and it also had a bunch of neocons running the show through the "Office of Special Plans."
But why did normal conservatives tolerate this shitshow? Why didn't they replace Bush with someone who was actually conservative?
Every establishment politican is a neocon
The left and right don't really exist, they scrap on social issues but the foreign policy has been the same since after the Korean War
But the thing is, self-described "conservatives" actually sent money to Bush and supported the Bush/Cheney ticket vigorously in 2004, even though Bush had already exposed himself as a fraud by then.
Were they just cucks?
you do know that even if Bush doubled the debt (after being forced into war by shitskins), Obama doubled THAT?
Yes, but Obama never promised to eliminate the debt. He was open about his plans to increase it.
Bush specifically campaigned on debt ELIMINATION, not just reduction.
thats an outright fucking LIE and you know it!
he called Bush's debt increase unpatriotic.
Bush was a terrible president and you'll be hard pressed to find anyone here who defends him.
...
There was significant upset with the grassroots especially with shit like the fuck up at the border/ guest worker program. I don't know why the GOP didn't do shit though.
Conservatives tend to blame GOP lawmakers being afraid of cutting spending for fear of getting shit on my the MSM. The entire line of rhetoric states that a vast majority of R lawmakers were trying to be friendly with the Ds and """compromise""" with them, or tried to play nice to avoid the ire of media talking heads. Bush signing the pieces of legislation you mentioned didn't help either, neither did the wars in the ME. Bush breaking the promises doesn't make him a lair, it just shows us that he was another politician. Conservatives defend Bush for the sake of defending party lines, attacking your own people never looks good in front of anyone.
Yes that was the disgusting era where pussy republicans were still afraid of liberals and their bullshit accusations
Bush was the stupidest Pres EVER.
Fuck the Repubs, and fuck the Dems.
Both controlled by special interests.
This is one of the reasons Trump won.
ding ding ding ding ding
>Why did conservatives tolerate this?
Conservatives did not. Only neo-cons and people who are Republicans first did. Unfortunately, that's most Republicans. The conservatives who opposed them were told to shut up and not given time on the news.
Why? Because Democrats also supported No Child Left Behind, just as they support every federal power grab. Democrats opposed Medicare Part D, but for reasons separate debt, mostly because the program didn't concentrate more power in the federal government. Republicans also supported it for reasons separate debt. The debt was an afterthought for both parties on those votes.
No Child Left Behind vote: clerk.house.gov
Medicare Modernization Act vote: clerk.house.gov
The war in Iraq is also particularly relevant when talking about the deficits during the core Bush years, 2002-2008.
The dotcom bubble burst and tax cuts given to the bottom brackets are also particularly relevant and much more relevant than tax cuts given to top income brackets. Note that the cuts for bottom brackets went into effect in 2001 and for top brackets in 2003, but tax revenues had already tanked in 2001 and 2002 due to a combination of the recession and lower income tax cuts.
The massive deficit for fiscal year 2009 is outside of the core Bush years and was heavily contributed to by TARP, a one year budget item with significantly more Democratic than Republican support, and the 2009 stimulus passed on a strictly Democratic Party line which drove up the debt for several years.
TARP vote: clerk.house.gov
2009 Stimulus vote: clerk.house.gov
>Why didn't they impeach Bush once Bush revealed himself as a liar?
Impeachment has a much, much higher standard than a President doing things opposite of what he campaigns on.
In general, both parties share responsibility for these problems.
Great post, those two bills were passed as a method of virtue-signalling by way of legislating. Pic related and others stuck to their actual principles and knew that buying votes can only carry you so far.
Medicare D is turning into a major budgetary debacle. Especially since the legislation specifically forbade the federal government from negotiating with pharma companies for drug prices.
There was such a staggering lack of foresight during the Bush years that it really seems unforgivable in retrospect. Now, debt is 100% of GDP, and reforms that should have been made to our entitlements programs in the 00's are going to be far more difficult as they begin to chew up the budget and run out of money.
Bush's social security "reform" proposal was an idiotic marketization scheme. He proposed this in 2005. It would have been implemented right in time for the great financial crisis.
Bumping for interest.
>Bush's social security "reform" proposal was an idiotic marketization scheme.
Why was this a bad idea on its own exactly? Besides, the market crash was beyond the horizon that year if I'm correct.
>wastes money on shit like No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D
>No Child Left Behind
>Medicare Part D
yep. That's what everyone remembers from the Bush years - the terrible, terrible burden of being given slightly better schooling and medical care. It's a wonder how anyone endured it. All that twenty billions dollars per year extra that the department of education got - no wonder the economy was a mess after that.
No, seriously - you had to have giggled a bit as you wrote that. There's no way anyone could list no child left behind and marginal medicare increases as the two biggest excesses of the Bush years with a straight face.
Two wars that cost trillions of dollars (and thousands of American lives), a trillion dollar bank bailout, the worst financial crash since the Great Depression, and the most deadly, most economically destructive terrorist event in US history (the perpetrator of which they allowed to escape so they could continue the wars). And he would still have been a terrible president without any of that.
If the Democrats were half-way competent, the Republicans would NEVER have got anywhere near the oval office again. They basically wilfully threw the election by choosing Hillary Clinton as their candidate, and Trump still lost the popular vote.
>Why did conservatives tolerate this?
you say that like conservatives have principles beyond 'more money for me, fuck everyone else.'
FOX news desu
the question isn't who defends him now, the question is how voted for him 16 years ago.
My guess would be that's it's most of the people here who were old enough to vote then. And those that weren't old enough probably supported him and would have voted for him if they could.
There are definitely a few people on here like me were largely liberals ten years ago but have become completely disillusioned with the direction the left has taken. There a some who are actual political independents, or libertarian-style right-wingers. There's even a few genuine neo-nazis, monarchists, theocrats and other weird fringe stuff.
But most of Sup Forums is the typical mouth breathing retard republican who cheered Bush along as he drove America off a cliff, and only discovered a taste for counter-culture and alternative politics when Obama became the president. The number of people calling themselves 'libertarian' exploded after 2008 as conservatives tried to distance themselves from the disgrace of the Bush years, but they were still the same idiots who put Bush in power no matter what they called themselves.
Not true, but funny nonetheless.
which part of it isn't true?
Repubes have always been statist and zionist and shit with money. Need them interest payments
Just imagine if we COULD impeach politicians for lying. Man, wouldn't that be somethin'?
>implying Republican voters can see past the R on the ballot
This is accurate except I think the vast majority here first cast ballots after 2008. Hoppean libertarianism is growing in popularity though.
It isn't, you disgusting shit.