W's Legacy
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Gary [email protected]
Maybe it will be like some of those other presidents who, despite not being popular or seemingly doing a crappy job, are judged favorably after the passage of time.
Initially, presidents like Truman and Eisenhower were judged pretty harshly, but now, historians seem to have given them a bit of a pass.
But then there are presidents like Nixon and Harding who probably never will be spared negative scrutiny.
Which will it be for W?
Well, if I had to bet, I would say the latter.
Honestly, he has led this nation into the perfect storm of maladies.
Remember when W took office? There actually were budget surpluses and we were paying down the national debt, which stood at a paltry $6 trillion. That debt, amassed over the history of government in the U.S., grew to more than $10 trillion under W's watch.
This year's deficit alone will be $1 trillion.
Some would say that this is because of an ill-advised war in Iraq, which is partially true, to be sure. But more of a culprit is the runaway government spending by a government led by a conservative, and with conservative majorities in both houses of Congress.
There was the prescription drug program - the largest government entitlement in the history of mankind. There was the USA PATRIOT Act - a massive new government bureaucracy. There was No Child Left Behind, a giant education program.
Per capita government spending is close to the highest in history.
All this spending drove deficits to record levels despite simultaneous record amounts of tax revenue being collect by the IRS. (The latter is one of the few bright spots in the W administration. W's tax policy worked. It brought in record amounts of revenue in each of the four successive years after its enactment.)
Meanwhile, the median income of Americans is falling, the jobless rate is rising and the economy - showing the worst growth in more than 20 years - is in the tank.
Then there's that ill-advised Iraq war. There's all that misguided intelligence, all those missing weapons of mass destruction and the diversion away from Afghanistan, where we're going to wind up anyway.
Probably some of the most troubling aspects of the W administration was the seeming willingness to ignore the constitution in the name of keeping us safe. Warrantless wiretapping and jailing people without due process seems a bit much.
I am sure W was well-intentioned. He wanted to keep us safe, which he did. (No more terror attacks in the U.S. after 9/11 has to be considered a good thing.)
But there is that whole "He who trades liberty for security will have neither" thing we need to consider.
I wasn't a fan of those "signing statements" either. That's when W would sign legislation into law, but then pull the old okey-doke with a "signing statement."
The signing statements were basically W saying, "Yeah, this is the law of the land, but I don't have to abide by it if I don't want to." Any time W went astray of the law it was always parsed in terms like "for national security" or "for the good of the country."
W seemed to think that since we're at war, his administration could just pretty do what it pleased.
And it isn't only what W did that will have him fall into disfavor with historians. It's what he didn't do.
Before being elected he talked about reforming immigration laws and bolstering the Social Security program. Neither of those things happened.
And his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina will not be remembered fondly.
W leaves office with one of the worst approval ratings in the history of presidential approval ratings.
It was so bad, W and Vice President Dick Cheney didn't even make appearances at the Republican National Convention last year.
Throughout it all, I never got the sense that W was conniving or disingenuous or malicious. It just seemed like he was in over his head from time to time and surrounded himself with people who had bad opinions.
For example, why did it take W so long to get rid of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld?
Shortly after that personnel change, there were changes in tactics and things started looking up in Iraq. W should have made that move long before he did.
Perhaps in the future historians will soften their view of W' presidency. But if so, I don't think it's going to be in the immediate future.[[In-content Ad]]
Maybe it will be like some of those other presidents who, despite not being popular or seemingly doing a crappy job, are judged favorably after the passage of time.
Initially, presidents like Truman and Eisenhower were judged pretty harshly, but now, historians seem to have given them a bit of a pass.
But then there are presidents like Nixon and Harding who probably never will be spared negative scrutiny.
Which will it be for W?
Well, if I had to bet, I would say the latter.
Honestly, he has led this nation into the perfect storm of maladies.
Remember when W took office? There actually were budget surpluses and we were paying down the national debt, which stood at a paltry $6 trillion. That debt, amassed over the history of government in the U.S., grew to more than $10 trillion under W's watch.
This year's deficit alone will be $1 trillion.
Some would say that this is because of an ill-advised war in Iraq, which is partially true, to be sure. But more of a culprit is the runaway government spending by a government led by a conservative, and with conservative majorities in both houses of Congress.
There was the prescription drug program - the largest government entitlement in the history of mankind. There was the USA PATRIOT Act - a massive new government bureaucracy. There was No Child Left Behind, a giant education program.
Per capita government spending is close to the highest in history.
All this spending drove deficits to record levels despite simultaneous record amounts of tax revenue being collect by the IRS. (The latter is one of the few bright spots in the W administration. W's tax policy worked. It brought in record amounts of revenue in each of the four successive years after its enactment.)
Meanwhile, the median income of Americans is falling, the jobless rate is rising and the economy - showing the worst growth in more than 20 years - is in the tank.
Then there's that ill-advised Iraq war. There's all that misguided intelligence, all those missing weapons of mass destruction and the diversion away from Afghanistan, where we're going to wind up anyway.
Probably some of the most troubling aspects of the W administration was the seeming willingness to ignore the constitution in the name of keeping us safe. Warrantless wiretapping and jailing people without due process seems a bit much.
I am sure W was well-intentioned. He wanted to keep us safe, which he did. (No more terror attacks in the U.S. after 9/11 has to be considered a good thing.)
But there is that whole "He who trades liberty for security will have neither" thing we need to consider.
I wasn't a fan of those "signing statements" either. That's when W would sign legislation into law, but then pull the old okey-doke with a "signing statement."
The signing statements were basically W saying, "Yeah, this is the law of the land, but I don't have to abide by it if I don't want to." Any time W went astray of the law it was always parsed in terms like "for national security" or "for the good of the country."
W seemed to think that since we're at war, his administration could just pretty do what it pleased.
And it isn't only what W did that will have him fall into disfavor with historians. It's what he didn't do.
Before being elected he talked about reforming immigration laws and bolstering the Social Security program. Neither of those things happened.
And his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina will not be remembered fondly.
W leaves office with one of the worst approval ratings in the history of presidential approval ratings.
It was so bad, W and Vice President Dick Cheney didn't even make appearances at the Republican National Convention last year.
Throughout it all, I never got the sense that W was conniving or disingenuous or malicious. It just seemed like he was in over his head from time to time and surrounded himself with people who had bad opinions.
For example, why did it take W so long to get rid of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld?
Shortly after that personnel change, there were changes in tactics and things started looking up in Iraq. W should have made that move long before he did.
Perhaps in the future historians will soften their view of W' presidency. But if so, I don't think it's going to be in the immediate future.[[In-content Ad]]
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