Another Republican Administration, Another Economic Crisis

Wednesday night's economic panic address by Bush is only the latest example of yet another economic crisis during yet another Republican administration. The funny thing is America's #2 political party always wants to run the country, but then never seems to have a clue how to really use power once they are in charge, where their second rate ideology always seems to create a crisis of some sort, usually economic in nature.

But what can you expect from a party that's usually on the wrong side of economic issues important to the average citizen like supporting a minimum wage increase, or allowing workers to unionize for better working conditions, salaries, health or retirement benefits? Republicans even wanted to privatize Social Security, which would have ruined the retirement security of many Americans whose retirement funds would have been invested in the stock market. Stock values of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have soared downward from highs in the $60 dollar plus range to only a little over $1 today. And many other stocks are at only a fraction of their high values. The retirement security of millions would have been ruined if the Republicans got their way on this issue. But Republican John McCain is still advocating for this privatizing Social Security nonsense.

Mr. Bush's economic address seemed to conveniently ignore the fact that it was of course Ronald Reagan who argued that "government is the enemy" and deregulated the financial industry during his Republican rule in the 1980's, setting in motion excesses in the financial industries such as excessive salaries and other abuses that are a major part of this latest Republican economic crisis for the country.

Other great achievements of the Republican Reagan Administration included illegally diverting billions of dollars of Agriculture CCC funds intended for international disaster relief allowing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to build up a huge military and buy billions in arms from France and Brazil during the Iran-Iraq War. While the Soviets at least declared an arms embargo in the area in an attempt to dry up the supply of arms in the area in an effort to promote peace talks, Reagan allowed years of war to continue that took millions of lives and only encouraged Saddam Hussein to use chemical weapons on some of his own people such as the Kurds who were disloyal during this war. The other great Reagan achievement was of course sending billions of American taxpayer dollars to help build up the Mujahideen fighters network in Afghanistan of the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden and other extremist radicals to fight the Soviets during their invasion of that country. After Osama Bin Laden established terrorist bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight the Russians, often with the help of American Reagan Administration funding, and the Soviets were defeated, then these terrorists only concentrated their efforts on promoting terrorism within the United States and elsewhere in the world. Simply brilliant Republican thinking.

However, when the Republicans aren't turning dictators like Saddam Hussein into regional threats or paying terrorists like Osama Bin Laden to senselessly kill, they're usually proficient at creating bank failures, economic slowdowns, recessions or depressions as history well proves.

1928-1932: Republican Herbert Hoover managed to take a prosperous American economy and drive it into ground and was the father of the Great Depression with massive bank failures where many American lost their life savings and many Americans began keeping their money in mattresses instead. American voters were just too prejudice to elect a Roman Catholic like Democrat Al Smith back in 1928, which allowed Hoover to sweep into office by a landslide and wreck the American economy. Thankfully Hoover ruined the Republican Party's reputation so bad that it wasn't until 1952 that Americans wanted to elect another Republican Administration so the economy could be wrecked again.

1952-1960: Popular moderate Republican war hero General Dwight Eisenhower was by all means a decent and honest man. But he was far better at defeating international villains like Hitler than at managing the strong domestic American economy built on the postwar manufacturing boom under Democrats Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman was turned to rust by Eisenhower's lack of economic understanding and recession resulted that helped to elect John Kennedy in 1960.

1968-1976: Americans once again yearned for more Republican mismanagement of the economy and Richard Nixon's continued Vietnam War efforts were an important key to creating serious inflation problems for the American economy. The U.S. dropped 300 pounds of bombs for every person living in Vietnam, and for every one dollar of damage in Vietnam it cost the American economy and taxpayers $10. More than 700 American aircraft were lost alone in this war. During 1965-1973 8 million tons were dropped on Vietnam and Mr. Nixon needed to print money like crazy to pay for all this bombing activity, leading to such bad inflation in the U.S. that Mr. Nixon had to declare wage and price controls similar to some of the old Roosevelt depression and war era economic stabilization efforts.

1980-1992: Jimmy Carter managed to become the only Democrat since the Great Depression to appoint ineffective economic advisors such as Alfred Khan to mismanage the American economy allowing Republican Ronald Reagan an opening to enact a lawless foreign policy of covert schemes to misuse funds to support a covert war in Nicaragua, prop up Saddam Hussein and pay terrorist like Osama Bin Laden to build up a worldwide terrorist network. The economy actually dramatically worsened for a while under Reagan and it was a rotten time to own a business during part of the Reagan years because many persons didn't have a lot of money to spend. It was only during the later part of the Reagan rule that the economy picked up enough that Americans allowed his Vice President Bush to rule for a term. But like father, like son, the senior Bush managed to create terrible economic times and allowed Democrat Bill Clinton an opening to create a big economic boom during his rule.

2000-2008: By 2000, Americans grew weary of the pants down antics of Democrat Bill Clinton, and it seemed to hurt Vice President All Gore just enough to allow the former drunk and cocaine abusing son of George Bush to win the election which didn't make a lot of sense. In addition, Bush seemed like a major league dumb-crap as well. Voting for him over the highly intellectual Al Gore was like choosing Gilligan over the Professor. And whenever Gilligan got involved, you knew that bad stuff would happen. And indeed it did. The Bush years have been characterized by near nonstop foolishness or problems of some sort. And now the nation is looking at possible bank failures and the most serious economic problems since the Great Depression unless it spends $700 billion to bail out the economy thanks to this latest Republican Administration that makes the Three Stooges look like professionals by comparison.

How much is $700 billion. Why it's only about $4,780 for every American taxpayer. It would build 1,077 Chicago Trump Towers. It would be the second highest government expense after the $738 billion dollar cost of the Iraq War and all national defense combined.

Amazingly, after this serious economic mess, the Iraq War fiasco, and numerous other Bush Administration mishaps and other crazed acts of downright foolishness, Republican John McCain runs close in the polls where some voters are wary of electing the first African-American Democratic President. But in 1928, many voters were just too prejudice to elect a Roman Catholic, so you can judge whether this is some measure of turtle-slow social progress in the U.S. or not that an African-American candidate now has an even chance of being judged as any other candidate would be and winning the presidency after Republicans have made a complete mess of the country once again.

Given their simply horrid economic performance history since Herbert Hoover, it seems like it takes half a mind to keep giving Republicans more chances to botch up the nation and drive the economy into ruin. But history books must be like kryptonite to many Americans, and a real safe place to hide your valuables, because so many don't look at history and realize what a screwy history of economic leadership the Republicans always seem to leave behind whenever they rule. Sometimes when you're the number two American political party it is for a good reason. Real second rate economic leadership is a large part of this.