Flood: Where were the conservatives for eight years?

By: John S. Flood Jr. | Morganton News Herald
Published: November 23, 2009

Morganton, NC --

I wonder where were the fiscal conservatives — who are calling for President Obama's impeachment for the deficit and calling him a socialist — for the past eight years. President Bush and the Republicans owned Washington for Bush's first six years and they did whatever they wanted to do.
Where were you when the surplus left by the last "tax and spend" Democratic administration was turned into the highest deficit this country has ever seen? Where were you when, in eight short years, more wealth was transferred from the lower and middle class to the rich than at any time in the country's history?
Where were you when Bush told us that tax cuts would trickle down and the Republicans cut taxes for the wealthiest one percent of Americans? That one tax cut cost millions more than the total proposed cost for reforming health care. How much of that tax cut did you get? Why was there not a peep from the fiscal conservatives about its impact on our deficit?
Where were you when Bush started a war that has consumed our national treasury and made billionnaires out of Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater, Boeing and other defense insiders? Where were you when the Bush administration shipped cash to Iraq in cargo planes and then could not account for it, nor the weapons sent as well.
Where were you when the Republicans told us we needed to get government out of the way of the free market and then watched as the unregulated financial industry drove our economy into the ditch with credit default swaps, derivatives and bundled mortgages? Where were you when Bush panicked and brought Hank Paulson in when Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns failed? Bush and Paulson then began bailing out GM, Chrysler, AIG, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch and nationalizing banks. Where were you when the credit markets froze, the stock market dropped 500 points per day and people began losing their homes and their life savings?
Bush went out of office with an economy verging on a depression and with two failed wars.
Things aren't great, but they are a lot better after eight months. The economy has stabilized. The government is making money on the loans (bailouts) to the financial industry. GM and Chrysler are out of bankruptcy. Job loss has slowed. The housing market has picked up. The stock market has recovered significant amounts lost in Bush's last year. We are phasing out of Iraq and focusing on the war Bush neglected until it was being lost.
There is much to question about Obama's willingness to commit money to address health care, stimulate the economy and address environmental reform. But criticizing bold and costly initiatives in terms of impeachment or socialism is a little like people starting a fire and then criticizing those who follow you for calling the fire department.

Flood: Where were the conservatives for eight years?

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