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this is george w. bush's legacy.
the economy clinton handed him wasn't perfect, but we were humming along and running a surplus.
so much so that shrub and greenie used the fear of what would happen if we actually paid off the ENTIRE national debt (it sounded ludicrous at the time, but it's even more outrageous now!) as a rationalization for his disastrous tax cuts.
then, typical of a complete fanatic, he failed to modify his views when the premises completely changed and evidence stacked up against him. 9/11, sluggish growth, anemic job creation, war in afghanistan, war in iraq, and going from record-setting surplus to record-shattering deficits -- NOTHING could pursuade him and his inept enablers that maybe, just MAYBE, his economic mismanagement was a problem and that the solution might involve something other than even MORE idiotic tax cuts.
his mismanagement of the economy was hardly limited to his terrible tax policy, but it's emblematic of it.
he's our generation's hoover, a two-term nightmare, hoover on steroids.
the truth of the matter is that i think the downgrade is silly. there's no real risk of non-repayment in u.s. treasuries.
but if it's a symbolic act, if it's an indictment of anything substantive, beyond the politics of the moment, it's that george w. bush took a strong, vibrant, functioning economy and a federal surplus and he turned it into a complete disaster.
and THAT is worthy of a downgrade.
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