Mar 23, 2006 
Let me tell you about what I think my job description is. I think my job is to confront problems, not pass them on to future Presidents and future Congresses. (Applause.) I know that’s what the American people expect of their leaders. — George W. Bush, August 3, 2005
Q Will there come a day — and I’m not asking you when, not asking for a timetable — will there come a day when there will be no more American forces in Iraq?
THE PRESIDENT: That, of course, is an objective, and that will be decided by future Presidents and future governments of Iraq. — press conference, March 21, 2006
There was a rumor — I haven’t found the primary source — that after the 2000 “election” president-presumptive Bush was told the state of Texas had run up a nasty budget deficit on his watch. “That’s not my problem,” he is said to have said.
Molly Ivins explained (in October 2003) how Bush used the Texas economy as part of his presidential campaign:
Between GeeDubya Bush’s second legislative session in 1997 and the official beginning of his run for the presidency in 1999, the state of Texas pissed away much of a $6 billion surplus. …
…Governor Bush made good use of the surplus, at least for his own political purposes. In a state known for low taxes and no income tax, he gave a big chunk of the surplus back to taxpayers. Then he ran for president saying, “I passed the largest tax break in the history of the state of Texas.” And why not? The economy was booming. Enron stock was going to hit $100 and split. Streets were filled with trucks laying fiber-optic cable. …
Dubya Bush arrived as governor after the party started. By the time it ended, he had ridden the Texas tech boom all the way to the White House. The first big Austin campaign bash in the summer of 1999 featured bad country music and a stump speech heavy on Bushonomic blather: “… the largest tax cut in the history of the state of Texas … give tax dollars to the people who earned them … ,” etc. Bush budget director Albert Hawkins, who had just left the state’s payroll to join the campaign, stood at the back of the crowd. Hawkins is a veteran capitol numbers-cruncher who knew better. Asked why none of the record surplus was banked in the state’s rainy day fund, Hawkins dismissed the question. The state’s finances were in good shape, he said. “We didn’t see any need to put any money in the fund.”
Then the stock market tanked, the Supreme Court named Bush president, tax revenues disappeared, and Texas went broke. As we write, we’re looking at a $10 billion deficit in Texas … As Bush rolled out his second big tax cut in Washington in 2002, the state he left behind was being ravaged by the deficits he created.
We are all Texans now. As in screwed.
In today’s Boston Globe, David Martin writes a tongue-in-cheek humor piece that suggests maybe we’d be better off if Bush sat on his hands and did nothing for the rest of his term. ”Anything I tried to do now would just need to be fixed up by some future president anyway,” says Bush via Martin.
But it’s only too true that Bush has skipped merrily through life without having to pay for his mistakes, since Daddy’s influence and money were always around to bail him out. As a result, Dubya is still the spoiled brat who expects the help to clean up his messes. The next president, whoever he is, will be faced with the biggest mess since FDR inherited the Great Depression and Lincoln was socked with the Secession Crisis. Trillions in debt, global nuclear proliferation, escalating violence and anti-Americanism in the Middle East — and we’ve got almost three years to go. This is frightening.
And even if Bush did sit on his hands until January 2009, the messes he’s made so far are going to get worse and worse without competent, pro-active leadership to deal with them. The deficit ain’t gettin’ smaller, Kim Jung Il still has plutonium, and today the Associated Press reports that “al-Qaida terrorists are setting their sights on Israel and the Palestinian territories as their next jihad battleground.” Yes, just what the world needs.
Unfortunately, the U.S. government is, in effect, hostage to a powerful cadre of Bush bitter enders and enablers who continue to intimidate news media, Congress, and the insider Washington pundit/consultant industries. Irrationally, given his negative approval numbers, conventional wisdom still says that taking on Bush and the VRWC could be fatal to careers.
However, not taking them on could be fatal to the nation.
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