Bush Warned Us While Democrats Laughed And Applauded
Now that President Bush is no longer in office, I am amazed at how he was considered the stupidest President ever, scoffed at and ridiculed for being inept, yet so many of his predictions are coming true.
The latest is over his efforts to reform Social Security when he was giving ominous warnings of potential failure, bankruptcy and large deficits.
In his 2006 State of the Union Address, he mentioned how Congress failed to act on any of his proposals to reform Social Security, at which time virtually every single Democrat in the hall stood and applauded, interrupting the speech. They were delighted to have stopped his efforts and yes, they were very rude about it.
Can you say “Joe Wilson?”
No, they did not call him a liar this time, but nonetheless, they were very rude in interrupting the speech, as can be seen in the video below.
Hard to see in the video is then junior Senator from Illinois, Barrack Hussein Obama, who also joined in the merriment at defeating any reforms to the growing Social Security deficits looming before us.
They offered no alternatives, just more of the same old status quo they are seen deriding today.
Imagine my astonishment, sitting here one year and one day away from that magical early retirement age, unemployed with little prospect of finding gainful employment, what with unemployment hitting 13.9% in my area and reading Social Security strained by early retirements.
Oh?
Nancy Pelosi, now speaker of the house and others said in 2005,
“There is no Social Security crisis. We all agree that there is a problem down the road that we should address before it becomes a bigger problem?” She added, “Along comes President Bush who wants to create a crisis and manufacture an issue, and in so doing turn a guaranteed benefit into a guaranteed gamble. And to that we and American people say: ‘Mr. President, no dice!’”
March 6, 2005 Pelosi appeared on Fox News Sunday and addressing Social Security reforms said,
“Your previous speaker said incorrectly that Social Security would be in the red in 2018. That’s simply not true. The more money going out than coming in doesn’t start until 2030. There's time for us to do this right.”
Well, Ms. Pelosi, it’s 2009 and you have been speaker for over 2 years and what have you proposed? NOTHING! Social Security is facing deficits of $10 billion in 2010 and $9 billion in 2011 due to the high unemployment amongst those of us of retirement age who can’t find work to continue to work until 65 or 67.
Candidate Obama said during last years campaign,
“But if my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would’ve had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week. Millions would’ve watched as the market tumbled and their nest egg disappeared before their eyes. Millions of families would’ve been scrambling to figure out how to give their mothers and fathers, their grandmothers and grandfathers, the secure retirement that every American deserves,”in a total misrepresentation of what President Bush’s proposal was, as indicated by none other then the left-leaning Factcheck.org.
Just days before being inaugurated as president, Obama said about the looming Social Security problems,
“What we have done is kicked this can down the road. We are now at the end of the road and are not in a position to kick it any further. We have to signal seriousness in this by making sure some of the hard decisions are made under my watch, not someone else’s.”
In the campaign, depending on where and to whom he spoke to, Social Security was either a crisis or not in a crisis.
Today, Obama indicates the problem of Social Security is something he would like to look into “next year.”
In the meantime, while we wait for dear leader to solve every other ill of society, millions of us hitting early retirement age, unemployed and with only a slim possibility of returning to a viable job any time soon with the ever-rising unemployment rates, wonder what we are to do.
Watching the video again, as Democrats gleefully and emphatically applauded their successful efforts at blocking the prevention of this current crisis 4 years ago, I can’t help but wonder if this might be another one of those times dear leader feels older Americans should just skip the cure and take a painkiller.
We let the dems win then - where was the TEA party support for President Bush and Speaker Hastert when they wanted to reform SS and the IRS respectively? Conservatives didn't have the guts to stand up for either of them, and now we are bitching and moaning because we are finding it too hard to squeeze the toothpaste back into the tube.
ReplyDeleteA small part of me wants to say "B-F-H" if the implications for failure now weren't so great.