Republican failures

Although I have done versions of this before, this was inspired by a Daily Kos Diary:

This is what happened Monday, Aug. 29, 2005...the day Katrina hit, John McCain's 69th birthday...the day America realized that Republicans don't give a shit about Americans.

Hurricane Katrina:

I remember the radar images from the weather channel the night before landfall. I remember distincly watching it and thinking, "My god...that's going to be bad." I also remember thinking that the government had better be ready to get people out and to deal with the situation.

I was right...it was going to be really, really bad. I mean THIS bad:

While Mississippi and Louisiana were getting slammed by Hurricane Katrina and Americans were dying, THIS is what Bush and McCain were doing:

From CurrentTV comes this amazing footage from WITHIN Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans:

Remember when the senior, elected Bush told America not to worry about the economy? He told us "Don't worry, be happy." That was the old Bush economic policy. Ignore the recession, ignore people's suffering, ignore the issue.

Well, his son is no better. He is also telling America not to worry about the economy.

Wheat, oil, milk, and corn prices all are reaching unheard of highs, making it harder than ever for working class and middle class Americans to make ends meet. Hedge funds are on the brink of failing. Bankruptcies are at new highs, leading to emergency bailouts of banks like Bear Stearns and fears that those banks could fail. The deficit is at an all time high. About the only things going down are wages, employment and the value of the dollar. We have those twin threats of inflation AND recession, a combination we used to call stagflation, though people seem scared to actually utter that word. Simply put, the economy sucks and Americans are hurting.

So today George W. Bush decided to reassure us about the economy. Don't worry about it, we are told. Everything's fine.

Are you better off than you were 8 years ago?

Unless you are CEO of Exxon/Mobil, Shell Oil or Halliburton, the answer is almost certainly a resounding "no!"

America is worse off than 8 years ago. We have the worst deficit in American history. We are experiencing inflation and stagnation. Prices are through the roof. Oil is at an all time high. Wheat is at an all time high. Don't know about you, but where I live even things like tomato sauce and cheese are sharply more expensive than I have ever seen them. In my neighborhood stores and restaurants close every day, hit by a double whammy of high real estate prices and sagging business. Hate crimes are up. Incomes are down. Job growth has been flat. Bankruptcies and defaults are becoming epidemic. Our infrastructure is failing.

America is worse off than it was 8 years ago. It is dramatically worse off.

Meanwhile, oil companies are raking in record profits, even as every year poor and elderly Americans freeze during winter because they can't afford heating oil. CEOs are making record salaries, even as middle class Americans are laid off, seeing decreasing salaries and face defaulting on out of control mortgages. Taxes on the wealthiest 1% of Americans have been sharply reduced while our national deficit skyrockets and our government can't (or chooses not to?) afford to fix our levees and bridges.

We are worse off than we were 8 years ago. This is the Republican legacy. From 2000 to 2006 Republican policies dominated. Since then the brakes have been put on their excesses, but they have not been reversed. We have had nearly 8 years of Republican domination. And we are all worse off than we were by a lot.