After Eight Years, We’re Burning BushWatch
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| Up in flames: 8 years of Bush debacles. |
Today, we bid farewell to BushWatch. That special section on our website where you could always go if you were in need of a little outrage or indignation over—repeat after me—”former” President Bush’s most recent slap at workers, gift to corporate cronies or bow down to extremist ideologues.
Click here, here, here, here and here for our five-part look back at BushWatch.
When we first started BushWatch eight years ago, we were sometimes genuinely shocked at the actions of this so-called “compassionate conservative” who had spent the entire campaign convincing voters he really wasn’t that extreme.
For example, he picked a Labor Secretary nominee (she later withdrew) who said the Labor Department staffers who disagreed with her opposition to basic worker protections like the minimum wage were “Marxists.” Now, that caught us off guard.
BushWatch: First MBA President Leaves Behind an Economic Wasteland
Eight years of President Bush’s economic tax cuts for the rich and job-killing actions have devastated working families. Just look at the smoking crater of the economy he’s leaving behind—7.2 percent unemployment, 2.6 million jobs lost last year alone, home foreclosures up by 81 percent in 2008, a plunging stock market, failing banks. Heck of a job, Bushie!
Our BushWatch retrospective today looks at a few of his more notable moves—mostly aimed at helping the wealthy and corporate world, with little regard for the rest us. For a complete listing, go to BushWatch and click on “Jobs and the Economy” and “Tax Cuts for the Wealthy” in the top box.
In early 2001, the man who molded Bush’s economic brain set the tone for the next eight years. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill said U.S. corporations should pay no income tax. Further, he said the capital gains taxes for businesses should be abolished and “able-bodied” adults should take care of their own retirement needs and medical expenses.
BushWatch: Eight Years of Health Care Failure
With the reauthorization of the nation’s health care program for 11 million low-income children (State Children’s Health Insurance Program), today’s look back at BushWatch examines the president’s record on health care. It’s not pretty—especially his two vetoes of the children’s health program.
(Click here and here for first two parts of our BushWatch review.)
After eight years of chronicling President Bush’s actions, it’s clear the common thread in his health care decisions, policy initiatives, legislation and regulations is this: preserving and protecting the private, for-profit health care industry—especially the massive health insurance industry and pharmaceutical giants.
The corporate health care cult has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying expenses and campaign contributions to influence health care policy in Washington. It’s paid off. The children’s health care program is a great example.
BushWatch: The Final Frontier
Eight years ago, President George W. Bush took office and we started what was to become one of the most popular stops on www.aflcio.org: BushWatch.
Over the years, we’ve chronicled the Bush administration’s executive orders, vetoes, policy decisions, legislative initiatives, regulatory actions and inactions that have had a direct impact on working families—none of it good.
We limited our scope to areas like job safety, health care, workers’ rights to form unions, jobs and the economy, civil rights and other real-world worker issues. It would take a superhuman effort to keep track of the Bush assaults and misdeeds on the environment, foreign policy, privacy rights and more.
With Barack Obama moving into the White House next week, we bid farewell to BushWatch as Bush heads back to Texas to lie about his legacy.
In the meantime, let’s look back at some of his more memorable, outrageous or evil actions—take your pick, depending on your indignation threshold. Today, we’ll revisit eight painful years of attacks on workers’ freedom to join a union.
