Response to that "Voted For Change" idiocy

[gcomeau]

Wrote this to respond to someone else who posted the text of the e-mail, then decided to give it it's own thread. (Also, snopes: http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/votedforchange.asp)

TO ALL MY FRIENDS....LIBERAL OR CONSERVATIVE........FYI

George Bush has been in office for 7 1/2 years. The first six the economy was fine especially after the Bush tax cuts rejuvenated the economy after 9-11.
A little over one year ago:
1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;

Bush was in office for 5 years before one year ago. A two and a half year high? That would mean still lower than when he took office.

2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;

And it was selling for under a buck fifty when Bush took over... point?

3) the unemployment rate was 4.5%.

3.9% when Bush took office...

4) the DOW JONES hit a record high--14,000 +

The Dow Jones has hit a record high under pretty much every presidential administration in the last 60 years. It tends to just keep going up. (Except times like now, when the economy is in shambles thanks to a certain party that isn't the Democrats)

5) American's were buying new cars,taking cruises,vacations overseas, living large!...

But American's wanted 'CHANGE'! So, in 2006 they voted in a Democratic Congress and yes--we got 'CHANGE' all right.

In the PAST YEAR:
1) Consumer confidence has plummeted ;
2) Gasoline is now about $4 a gallon!;
3) Unemployment is up to 5.5% (a 10% increase);

4) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $12 TRILLION DOLLARS and prices still dropping;
5) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.
6) as I write, THE DOW is probing another low~

Good grief...

This has been coming for years, and everyone paying any attention knew it. You cannot run multi-hundred billion dollar national deficits, continually cut taxes on everyone while fighting two wars and borrowing the money to pay for it from the Chinese, slash regulations on the financial industry until they have almost no oversight at all, and then express shock and dismay when it inevitably catches up to you and try to blame it all on the people who weren't responsible for any of the above. The Democrats did none of those things.

Have they done a lot in the last year and a half to try to prevent them since they got influence in the Senate and the House back? No. Of course they might have been able to get more done if we didn't have a Republican president who refuses to admit anyone but him and his cronies are ever right about anything and the evidence be damned, and a minority Republican House and Senate who stonewall and filibuster half the useful bills that anyone tries to put through Congress and then complains that things aren't getting done... (not to mention the Senate is 49 Democrat, 49 Republican with Leiberman as the swing vote, how much power to change things do you think they have with Bush and his veto pen in the White house???) but the Democrats need to grow a spine and just push right through them on some of these things. Give them Obama as a president and the promise that if they do it they'll actually get their legislation signed when they're finished and you should see it happen.

Here's the bottom line. in 1992, for the first time in a long time, we got ourselves a Democratic president, a Democratic Senate, and a Democratic House. At that time, when Clinton took office, Reagan and Bush Sr. had just finished saddling us with 12 straight years of multi-hundred billion dollar budget record annual deficits (sound familiar?).

And what happened when those scary scary tax and spend liberals got all the power? The budget deficit dropped a hundred billion dollars in the next 2 years. The unemployment rate dropped from 7.4% (where it was when Bush Sr. left office) to 5.5% two years later (that would be over 25%).

And then, for reasons which are still mind boggling, the Republicans seized control of Congress and the Senate in the 1994 elections. They of course continued the initiative to reduce the budget deficit in cooperation with Clinton (and also immediately took credit that it was happening at all of course), if they didn't and it had really sunk in with people what the Democrats had been doing the last two years their whole "tax and spend Liberals" scare tactic mantra would have gone up in smoke. But while they were doing that they also authored and pushed through the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in '99, passing it through both the Congress and Senate that they controlled, with veto proof majorities. That bill slashed regulation on the finance industry and directly set the stage for the eventual implosion we just saw happen. It was written by Phil Gramm. You know Phil, he's McCain's economic policy adviser and the guy who helped write his economic policy platform. He and John McCain are both long time deregulation champions. McCain has been declaring it the entire election. At least until last week, when all of a sudden McCain expected us to believe he was actually the champion of the American people who will fight for tougher better regulations to keep something like this from happening again, because obviously we're all idiots with no short term memory and will thus actually believe this.

Bottom line: Republicans had the Presidency, Congress AND Senate for 6 years. Full and total control. And we, not being completely blind, can see where that led. To disaster. Our diplomatic credentials around the world are shot. Our economy is trashed. Our military is overstretched. Our constitutional protections are compromised. Our executive branch is operating under the assertion that it has the "Executive Privilege" to anything the hell it wants with no oversight at all while congressional subpoenas are laughed off and ignored like they're invitations to dinner from a relative you don't like. The Justice department has become a political office. Iran is rapidly becoming the dominant force in the middle east thanks to the debacle in Iraq. And Al Qaeda is as strong as it's ever been and laughing their butts off because there's no chance in hell they could have ever done this much damage on their own but we put a pack of idiots in office who did it for them.

So yes, by all means let's flee in terror from the idea of removing that administration's party from power and recreating the conditions of 1992 again by putting the Democrats in charge. We certainly don't want a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress cooperating in Washington. That would be terrifying. We might cut the deficit again. We might lower unemployment again. They might slash the violent crime rate again. Our allies might start liking and respecting us again. Oh the horror.

[EC]

1. Very good and logical

but repubs don't get logic...and their reading comprehension skills are lacking, so maybe you should put it in bullet points, so they can follow it...