How Long Will It Take Us To UNDO And Repair Everything...

[arwalden]

... that this administration has done to America? How long would it take the next Democratic administration to restore our civil rights and to bring some semblance of peace to the world?

Would we be able to re-do and re-establish laws and rules that were once in place to protect our environment? How long before "nation-building" is acceptable again and the preferred option over all-out war?

Would we be able to undo the executive orders that circumvented the FOIA... and that threaten to keep Reagan/Bush documents sealed for another generation or two?

Will we be able to improve our budget and economy and employment situation in at least four years? Or will it be SO SCREWED UP that after four years the Republicans will be able to "blame" democrats for the state of the economy?

HOW MUCH IRREPARABLE DAMAGE HAS BEEN DONE?

-- Allen

[lcordero]

1. go to this site and you will find your answer

http://www.wage-slave.org/scorecard.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. A lot, I'm afraid

the economy will tank unless whoever is President has a good Democratic majority to help him undo the harm done by Shrub and Co. The Repukes will,no doubt, hammer home the fact that there is a huge deficit, and will try to blame it on the Dems in 2008.

[greatauntoftriplets]

3. Bush is bankrupting this country with his wars and tax cuts for the rich.

It will take generations to overcome the deficit spending.

[Mairead]

4. Lots and lots of damage.

Which is why Dennis Kucinich is the only sane choice for any working person.

[prolesunited]

5. Considering they have just complete their goal

of bankrupting the federal government, I don't know how we'll recover.

First, I counted the $2.4 trillion Social Security surplus, which the Treasury uses to offset its cash shortfall. Then I figured that the last three years of tax cuts will become permanent and that Congress will pass a Medicare prescription-drug package and stop the dreaded alternative minimum tax from hitting 30 million taxpayers. These changes add $3.6 trillion to the deficit. So by the time you're done, the total projected deficit is more than five times the aforementioned $1.4 trillion. Call it $7.4 trillion. And I'm being generous, assuming we spend nothing in Iraq starting Oct. 1, 2005.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12314-2003Sep1.html



According to hard-right Republicans, killing off government to make way for corporate rule is truly at the core of the so-called "conservative agenda." For example, the lead cheerleader for Bush's tax-cutting fervor is a man named Grover Norquist, well known to every politician in Washington.

"I don't want to abolish government," Norquist told National Public Radio's Mara Liasson in a May 25, 2001 Morning Edition interview. "I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0225-10.htm

We have much work to do if we are to save our democracy.
 

[glarius]

6. Speaking as a non-American...at least with a Democrat in the White House

you will be able to bring a "semblance of peace to the world?" We, out here in the rest of the world (Canada in my case), are praying for the end of the Bush government. We are being punished (through trade) for our failure to join the Iraq attack. He has insulted and alienated most of your former allies. ANY of the Democrats in the running will be a HUGE improvement, and will make us all take a huge sigh of relief! :)

[liberalmuse]

7. It took Clinton several years...

to completely turn things around. By his 3rd year in office, there wasn't much doubt that he was on the right track. I hope the Democratic President in 2004 is willing to go to Clinton for a lot of advice.

On edit: I have to add that Bush II has done so much more damage than Reagan and Bush I combined. I have this feeling that things are even worse than we think. How's that for optimism?

[Yupster]

8. I'll see your pessimism, and raise it ...

To me, it seems like the USA and much of the rest of the western world is having an "adjustment" to its standard of living.

Throughout history, as lower standard of living countries learned how to do things as well as we could, they took jobs from us that we used to do. Long ago it was steel production, when I was a kid it was clothing manufacturing, then it became consumer products, and now it's becoming information jobs. There are always attempts to stem the flow and they never work. Does anyone else remember the "Look for the Union label" campaign of the 60's to get people to buy more expensive made in the US clothes? It didn't work.

So how did we stay on top then? Well, we always had new cutting-edge jobs and industries that were hiring while the old industries died. This kept us ahead, and since we could do things, invent things and make things that other societies couldn't match, we deserved our high standard of living.

I fear this has been gradually coming to an end for many years. We have let our schools slip and our population has gotten a higher stupidability factor. Did anyone see the poll that said two-thirds of Democrats can't name one of the nine Democrats running for president? Maybe even worse, the push for exit testing in the schools has led to a push to get the bottom kids to an acceptable minimal level and the top kids are often left to twiddle their thumbs.

Is there a solution. Well, kind of. There may be the next internet discovered in the next 20 years, and it will bring with it tens of millions of new jobs. That can and will happen again, but there are two caveats...

1. Will we be the ones to invent the next internet? If we are not the ones inventing the new stuff, we cannot justify our better standard of living.

2. Will the next internet have the seeds of our own fall in it like this one did. The information revolution was wonderful, but it also allowed information to be processed so easily and quickly that the jobs could be moved to India or the Philippines.

There's an old story -- "In Africa every morning a lion wakes up knowing that if he isn't faster than the slowest wildebeest today, he will starve to death. A wildebeast wakes up knowing that if he isn't faster than the fastest lion, he will be killed. So the message is, whether you're the wildabeast or the lion, wake up and start running."

I'm afraid we, as a society aren't running anymore, and other societies are. If true, they will deserve, and have the best standard of living in the world, and we will not.

[kentuck]

9. We can't even undo the huge taxcuts....

Because it would "increase taxes on the middle class", according to some Democratic candidates for the Presidency. How can we undo anything else? Only circumstances will change the minds of the Republicans in the House and Senate and the Democrats will follow them, pretending to be leading...

[Clete]

13. No but how about instituting some new ones, creative

ones, that hit the top highest earning third of the population. Any ideas?

[tom_paine]

10. Damaged Irreperably

And that is even IF we can restore the Old American Democratic Republic.

Even now, economic, social, environmental, structurally (both literal and figurative) mayhaps has already passed the point of now return.

Remember, in 5-10 years the Baby Boomers will start retiring. Once we lose that "gult of productivity" and worse, once they begin to descend the downward slope which will impact services across the spectrum, we have lost both the income and the actual numbers of workers to address anything.

Even now, we may have already passed the point of no return.

[Tyler Durden]

11. Depends on whether or not Bush goes in 2004

If he goes, AND we are able to do ANYTHING with the Congress, AND sustain the effort for 8 years, we MAY see some benefit.

Howeve to be honest, I keep hearing Tony Randall's voice of the "Brain" from GREMLINS II:

"Frankly, we're telling our clients to invest everthing in canned goods and shotgun shells."

[SharonAnn]

12. See this:" Interview with Paul Krugman"

In Editorials forum:

Liberal Oasis - Interview with Paul Krugman. He explains the stark economic information.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=8896

[Kazak]

14. Oh, about eight years...

Just long enough for the American public to forget about the perils of electing an republican pres.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

15. the healing process would begin from day 1