The Many Bush Records

Yesterday, a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey revealed 71 percent of the American people disapprove of the way President Bush is handling his job. It’s a new record disapproval rating for a modern President. His record even surpassed the high disapproval ratings of presidents Truman and Nixon. I started thinking about the other records President George W. Bush already holds…and there are many:

Record Debt

The current national debt under the Bush administration is a whopping $9.5 trillion. Interest payments on the national debt exceed $406 billion annually. That’s debt of $31,000 for every man, woman and child in America!

Record Annual Spending

$3.10 trillion in proposed federal spending for FY ‘09. Barry Goldwater would not recognize his party today. As Newt Gingrich recently said, the movement he started has been “run off the rails.”

Record Spending on Nation Building

The war in Iraq is estimated to have already cost taxpayers $550 billion in outlays. The Bush-Cheney pre-emptive strike policy (a first for our nation) led us to the Iraq debacle that continues to drain our nation of its human and financial resources. Some estimates put the total costs for Afghanistan and Iraq adventures at more than $1 trillion.

Record price per gallon for gasoline

$3.62 per gallon is the current national average for the price of regular gas according to AAA. The price of crude oil is at a new record, too, currently $120 per barrel. This is, indeed, quite a record when you consider the price of crude was just $15 per barrel in 1998!

Record miscalculation in cost of Rx drug benefit for seniors under Medicare

Originally $400 billion but the cost increased to $720 billion by ‘06, and is now over $1 trillion, according to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Record cuts in Medicaid

The Bush administration proposed a cut of $60 billion in Medicaid for FY ‘06 – and later revised the proposal to a cut of $13 billion over next five years. This remains a record for cuts in the nation’s largest health insurance program.

Record loss of health insurance

The number of Americans who lost their health insurance since January 2001 is estimated to be 8.2 million.

Record setting cost proposed for privatizing Social Security

$3 trillion and rising for privatizing Social Security. Republican members of Congress did not wish to share this record so they refused to pass it.

Record “reshuffling of chairs on the deck” of the good ship Bush

As Hurricanes Katrina and Rita proved so tragically, the Department of Homeland Security, established after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, has not improved our government’s ability to respond to national emergencies. Nor has DHS, in the minds of most observers, made America safer from terrorist attack. That perception will not be made crystal clear to all Americans until the next attack. And there will be one according to Vice President Dick Cheney. “It’s just a matter of time.”

Good luck to the next President, indeed, to all of us and our children as we struggle to correct the mistakes of this administration. The Bush administration weakened the American presidency with ineptness, undermined the economy with profligate spending, and threatened our national security by creating new enemies abroad through the pursuit of reckless and ill conceived foreign policies.