Where did Bush go wrong?

in my opinion bush went wrong when he gave us the Bait-N-Switch with Iraq

this is a fun video about bush

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/28699663#2...

We'll need to go back one more step to look at this more reasonably. Bush inherited a mess from Clinton. The dot-com bubble had burst causing a lot of havoc and slamming the economy pretty hard. Taxes were up, slowing the economy even more. Clinton had dwelt ineffectually with a number of terrorist incidents directed at the US and had developed information that Iraq had WMDs, something congress then and later agreed with, along with a number of other countries. Before I go on, Clinton also initiated the welfare to work program, which was a great idea. He also ordered the bombing of Belgrade, which was a poor idea. I often wonder why it is so rarely mentioned that we still have troops fighting and dying there.

Bush came into office, cut taxes and in general improved the economy. Unemployment was as low as 4% while the economy grew. That's not to say the economy was perfect because we still had things to deal with regarding the massive cash flow debacle caused by the dot-com bubble under Clinton.

9/11 happened and combined with the intelligence information regarding WMDs, as well as other information implying that Iraq was financing terrorist operations, Bush decided to invade Iraq and finish what his father was prevented from finishing. I do not support wars of aggression at any time and to this day feel he was wrong there. It should be noted though, that once we engaged Iraq, the terrorist attacks against us ceased until Bush was out of office. Although WMDs were never found, one has to wonder since Hussein did use them against his opponents in the past.

The last two years of Bush's second term were with an adversarial, democratic congress. Not only were many of his plans stopped in the making, many things were done that were bad ideas, the worst being th loosening up of lending rules to make homes more affordable to more people. That idea was clearly flawed from the beginning because they were adjustable rate mortgages and as soon as the interest rates began to rise the homes were no longer affordable. I blame a lot of people for that. Bush, for not yelling louder against it, Congress for pressuring lenders and the people themselves for getting themselves in too deep and not thinking ahead. Each played their part.

When the housing market dropped, the buyers could not pay their loan nor could they sell the house for anywhere near what they owed, they had placed themselves between a rock and a hard place. That led to the housing crash which, in turn, led to the banking crash.

Congress and Bush agreed to the first bailout, I personally disagreed. Basically it was a matter of throwing good money after bad. It would have hurt a lot to allow the crash but on the other hand, it would have been a relatively short term pain. Instead, we now have massive debt that will most likely never get paid and an economy that is still floundering.

Obama is a liberal and made many promises. He is too inexperienced and naive to understand that what he was promising was impossible to achieve. As a result, he is now leading the US down a path of far greater debt and insolvency by enacting programs that will not improve the economy. Instead, they will result in greater dependence on the government to find ways to bail us out.

Obama seems to believe that a nation tightly regulated is the best but that is ivory tower thinking. He is using bailouts and regulation to try to maneuver the economy. History has demonstrated time and again that if the government tries to control the economy, you get feedback resulting in severe oscillations. The more you try to control it the worse it gets. The alternative is to keep trying to redistribute the wealth but that is a failed idea too. Instead of putting more money into circulation it results in more money in government control. Less money is available for innovation and economic expansion resulting in slower or even negative economic growth. In the past I have cited both the former USSR and China as examples of this. The USSR collapsed and millions went cold and hungry, many froze or starved to death. In China they have figured out that relaxing the rules and allowing more capitalism is the better answer and that country is beginning to thrive.

Based on the above, I think we are headed for a crash. The policies we are seeing are inflaming the people, creating hatred and generating more debt. While it isn't politically correct to state this, I think we need the crash to get back on our feet again. Obama's policies are leading towards socialism, which may temporarily hold off the crah but when it gets here it will be worse for slowing it down.

first of all Bush did a excellent job rallying America after 9/11 and most people agree with the invasion of Afghanistan. His problem came with the invasion of Iraq, most of Bush's advisor's were people involved in the gulf war conflict which at the time Saddam was considered the biggest threat to America. Under Bush Jr those same people took power again and still believed that iraq was supporting terrorism and still was trying to create weapons of mass destruction. Also during the Iraq invasion Bush and his advisors did not take enough time to carefully plan a iraq recovery strategy before the invasion began. So after saddam regime fell their was complete chaos in iraq because their was no form of government and people resorted to looting and violence

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (enacted October 3, 2008), commonly referred to as a bailout of the U.S. financial system, is a law enacted in response to the subprime mortgage crisis authorizing the United States Secretary of the Treasury to spend up to US$700 billion to purchase distressed assets, especially mortgage-backed securities, and make capital injections into both foreign and domestic banks. The Federal Reserve also extended help to American Express. The Act was proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson during the global financial crisis of 2008. President Bush signed the bill into law within hours of its congressional enactment, creating a $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program to purchase failing bank assets.

I don’t even understand what you mean by “Where did Bush go wrong?” From day one in office, he started instituting neocon and con policies that hurt our nation. Review his record. His economic and foreign policies were horrible. His domestic policies were regressive. Even the invasion of Afghanistan, on which I originally gave him the benefit of the doubt, turned from being a pursuit of al Qaeda into a nation-building effort that has become a disaster. You would also think that the Medicare Prescription Program was supposed to be a good thing but it was basically a gift to the pharmaceutical companies at taxpayer expense. Bush did nothing right.

It went wrong when Bush went to Congress to make changes in Fannie Mae and how home loans were written. Congress aka Barney Frank said everything was fine and refused any changes.

Bush did not push the issue and let it go.

Deregulation, didnt listen when intel was presented that there were no wmds in Iraq, Allowed bin Ladin to escape from Tora Bora. Lowered taxes in time of war there by raising the national debt. Placed US assets in Iraq when the war on terroism was in Afghanistan. this guy truly screwed the pooch.

I feel that Bush tried to appease to both political parties. While doing so, he forgot that he had our troops fighting a war. He tried to keep it so PC that instead of doing what was necessary, he dragged it out. And for what? Nothing. Democrats and Liberals still hate him regardless. He would've been hated whether he obliterated our enemies or not. And to add insult to injury, he turns his back on our troops that Murtha accused of murder when they were in fact doing the job he sent them to do in the first place.

Bush spent too much money and failed to properly secure the borders and deal with illegal immigrants (especially after 9/11).

Other than that, he was RIGHT ON regarding the things that matter most to America.

Obama has been a DISASTER by any/all accounts. His list of broken campaign promises, his 4X spending of the deficit he cries that he "inherited", his TOTAL violation of promises of "transparency" and "ethics", his tax increases and attack on the middle class, his 7 months to decide on troop requests..

I have nothing nice to say about OWE-Bama.

1. Ignored the FBI Report " ben ladden attacked twin tower basement"

2. Enron Scam did nothing about wallstreet & banks regulations

3. Let Chenney LIE ABOUT WMD's to U.N. Gen Powell & Troops

4. Katrina ignored americans while CNN reporters showed movies of hurricane coming

5. Failed to deregualte banks and passed out rubber checks to spend

6. Failed to block ARAB OIL gas gouging and let wallstreet speculate on oil futures

7. TONS OF FAILED STAFF madoff gonlalez....

8. Left the biggest economic disaster since the Great depresion

9, the Bush Torture policy

Iraq