Did Bush and the Republicans get everything they wanted?

[CTLawGuy]

Let's put that myth to bed now. While they were able to exploit 9/11, Fox News, and blue dog dems to get a lot of what they wanted, there are big things they could not get, some VERY important to their base:

1. 2001 tax cuts: They are going to expire in 2010 or 2011. The Rs could NOT make them permanent. And these tax cuts were the CENTERPIECE of Bush's first term. (The reason they are going to expire was because Maj. Leader Trent Lott had to use reconcillation to get around a D filibuster, and tax cuts in reconcilliation only last ten years.)

2. Federal Marriage Amendment: Could not pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

3. SS privatization: Failed to pass a bill to put workers' social security payments into the stock market as individual accounts, thereby getting rid of ACTUAL social security without telling anyone.

4. Flag burning amendment: fails to pass every year and I'm happy to say I haven't heard about it in recent years.

5. Attacking Iran: they wanted to, but never actually did or could.


And then there are some issues on which Bush and/or Rs in congress completely went against the base, or ignored the wishes of the base, or just did nothing about:

1. Immigration reform: Bush was for it, the base was against it.

2. eliminating federal departments: such as the Department of Education, in fact Bush created new departments, i.e. Dept of Homeland Security.

3. prayer in schools: nothing

4. school vouchers: Nothing

5. Constitutional amendment overturning Roe v. Wade: Nothing

6. English only laws: Nothing

7. New Medicare entitlement, Medicare Part D: Bush was for it, base against it.

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Hope that gives some perspective.

[babylonsister]

1. The cynic in me says 'yes': they stayed out of jail. nt

[Richardo]

2. Thanks for a little historical - as opposed to hysterical - perspective

K&R :kick:

[no_hypocrisy]

3. No, they didn't destroy the democratic party, permanently making this country one party.

[The_Commonist]

4. I don't think the Bushies cared about a lot of that stuff...

Federal marriage act, flag burning, prayer in school and vouchers, abortion and English only laws... I think that stuff was just out there to keep the proles busy. Bush and the fascistas could not have cared less about those things.

The Bushies set out to rip us off, and they did accomplish that.

[hileeopnyn8d]

7. I agree

Their base cared about them, but I don't think Bush or Cheney did. However, they did manage to somehow convince their base that they cared about those issues even without ever saying so.

Not saying so is how they managed to keep independents and moderate republicans in 2004, states putting gay marriage bans, abortion and stem cell research on the ballots in 2004 is how they got the far right out to vote.

Blech. They accomplished enough bad things that I take no solace in their inability to achieve them all.

[Mist]

5. The */Cheney regime also failed to get their way (and their hands) on social security. nt

[rurallib]

6. I thimk a lot of those issues were for the base's consumption

and there was really little effort to do something about them. Just like abortion, were these issues removed they would have nothing to throw the base to whip them into a frenzy.
Ergo, I don't think we will ever see real action on most of those.

I see the one glaring failure in their agenda to be the privatization of SSI.
In 2002 my take on Bushco was that they had basically 3 overarching agenda items:
1) bust the unions at all costs - pretty much accomplished.
2) drain the treasury (and pass it to their buddies) so that any future social legislation can be viewed as 'bankrupting the country'
- my contention has always been that Iraq was merely a vehicle to an end here. As were the insane insane tax cuts.
- invading Iran was yet another issue where there was no real intention to do anything other than to use it to whip up the crazies.
- This is where their only failure - privatizing SSI - falls.
3) control the media. - pretty much accomplished and continues to be accomplished.

By doing this Bushco has set the country back @120 years to the days of the robber barons, yellow journalism and workers being crushed.

All in all I would say they were very successful.

[n2doc]

8. They never have had the intention of overturning R Vs. W

This is a recruiting tool, nothing more. Same with school prayer, gay marriage, immigration reform...If they actually did something about it then those folks who cared would become happy and complacent and perhaps start to look for other things to care about, like spending or personal corruption (i.e. Vitter).


My feeling is they accomplished everything they sought to, which is basically the vast transfer of wealth, both from citizens and from borrowing, to the top 1%. They did this very well. And the other thing was to make bad government acceptable, even expected. Essentially making Ronnie Raygun a prophet (profit?). And stacking the courts with corporatist Judges who will protect their interests for as long as they live.


The biggest problem the R's have is that they spent so many years winding up the crazies that the crazies are threatening to take over the whole party.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

9. Not everything but too much.

Their one glaring "defeat" being SS privatization in 2005. Most of the things you mentioned are things that they might have paid "lip service" to but never actually DID anything about except for banning "partial birth abortion". They got their tax cuts, they severely hampered the ability of federal departments to enforce existing regulations on businesses (which made their *failure* to eliminate federal departments effectively moot), they got to invade/occupy/carve up Iraq, and, in the final act, was able to funnel massive amounts of money to the banks after the entire economic *system* very nearly totally collapsed. I'd say that, as far as they are concerned, they were wildly successful and we can be pretty certain that NONE of them are going to have to suffer any consequences for what they did/enabled. :puke:
:argh:

[paparush]

10. Goal #1 - Gut the middle class and working poor. CHECK

Goal #2 - Make their rich cronies richer. CHECK

Goal #3 - Reduce govt regulation. CHECK

I apologize for being cynical, but Bush/Cheney didn't leave this country in a ditch, they left us in a grave.

[ej510]

11. Yes they transfered wealth from the poor to the elite.

[TheKentuckian]

12. Republicans don't actually want to do anything at all as far as initiatives

All they really want is to steal all the money and control the dialog. I have no idea what people are talking with the "Republicans got everything they wanted" meme since they want very little and what they want is considered "free" like tax reductions, maintaining the status quo, and deleting regulations. This is an apples to celery type thing, Democrats have programs and conditions changing civil rights expansion.

I don't see what there is not to get about this dynamic at all. Duh, it is harder to initiate than maintain, its easier to cut taxes than raise new ones, and of course when you have absolute control of enforcement it is easy to build up conditions that allow deregulation.

It can't just be blown off that there is substantial feelings of anti-tax and anti-government in this country and that has to be dealt with and overcome to actually accomplish things. The damage Reagan and company did to the very mentality of the country isn't be faced up to by a great many on our side here. Our job is far and away tougher and I've got to say if you can't grasp that or even just plain observe it then politics is probably not for you and that doesn't even account for the money gap and media control.

I wonder what reality people live in all across the spectrum.

[Orsino]

13. They got everything they planned to get, I think.

Not as much as they could imagine.

They pulled the country rightward, and enriched the already wealthy. They cowed the mainstream media, and militarized American culture, even further.