To the Editor:
There are many Americans who are suffering from amnesia. You seem to forget that the financial disaster on Wall Street occurred during the Bush Administration. Don’t you recall Republican senator John Mc Cain suspending his 2008 campaign in order to rush back to Washington so he could vote for the first big government bail-out to the banks requested by President George W. Bush?
Republicans would also like you to forget how they lied to the American people when they convinced Congress to vote for the invasion of Iraq. It is estimated we were spending ten million dollars a day in Iraq and that we lost over four thousand American lives in a country we had no business invading. The Bush Administration totally ignored Afghanistan which was responsible for the terrorist attack on 9-11 and in doing so enabled Iran to build up their nuclear arsenal to make them the threat they are today.
Just for the record, when Barack Obama took office, the cost of the Iraq war was not even on the list of expenditures.
Let’s talk about the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, which added seven million dollars to the national deficit and were never paid for. According to Republicans, keeping these tax cuts in place will create jobs. If this is the case, then explain to me why we were losing 700,000 jobs a month during the Bush Administration and it is on record that less jobs were created during the time George W. Bush was in office than any other President since World War II.
Remember also that the Bush Administration inherited a surplus from the Clinton Administration which, after eight years in office, they turned into a deficit of $1.3 trillion.
The reason I am asking people to remember the amount of money spent by Republicans when they were in charge is that now these same Republicans are demanding fiscal responsibility from the Democrats. No more spending even on legislation they know will improve our economy. The reason the Republican strategy has been to say “no” to everything is because the Republicans do not want the economy to get better, especially under Barack Obama. They would like to see the President fail even that it means failure for the entire country. So much for their phoney slogan during the 2008 campaign, “Country First.”
Try to have patience and give this current administration some time before you say, “throw the bum out.” Just think about the bums who are looking to replace them and what they stand for. Republicans, if elected once again to power, are in favor of prioritizing or doing away with Social Security, Medicare, veteran’s benefits, abolishing the minimum wage, abolishing unemployment benefits, and repealing heath care and financial reform, just to mention part of their agenda
When you cast your ballot on Nov. 2, remember it was the Republicans under the leadership of George W. Bush that drove our economy into a ditch so deep that it will take a miracle and a lot longer than 18 months to recover.
JANE SWEET