Bush 43 did his best to dismantle government

Let’s go over this one more time: The Bush 43 Administration was opposed to government.

The Bush-Cheney regime displayed as much contempt for the government with which they were entrusted as the extremists of the current Tea Party movement.
Long time political observers of Washington saw it up close every day…and wondered if the country would survive. It did, but just barely.

I talked about it and wrote about it as often as possible. So did others – and all knew nothing would be done. Why? The Republican machine that preserves the Reagan mystique was in full throttle to protect the Bush Administration from the obvious: they were incompetent.

The saddest fact: Responsible Republicans ignored the misfeasance of the Bush 43 regime, holding fast to the idea that maintaining their ruling influence was more important than serving the people.

Bush 43 propagated EVERY agency of the federal government with individuals who adhered to the philosophy that “the government is best that governs least.” That may have worked in Thomas Jefferson's time when the total population was under 4 million, but it does not work today when the population is 324 million.

A big government is necessary to serve the people in 2010. Anyone who does not agree with that has no interest in seeing government succeed at any level...and thus their motives are suspect.

So what happened during the Bush era? From 2001 to January 2009, regulators were told the free market will make the correct and best decisions. Don’t worry about fulfilling your regulatory duties. They didn’t. For eight years, one federal agency after another was stripped of the funds to support its lawful activities, and populated with individuals who knew they would be rewarded if they did not interfere in the free market or spend money the law charged them to spend in support of citizen needs.

We paid the price for 8 years but veteran observers also knew we would pay the price for many years after Bush 43 left town. We are. It will be many years before we are able to say we have recovered as a nation.

President Obama has made a good start on health care reform, Wall Street reform, immigration reform, energy innovation and climate change. He is not being applauded broadly for his aggressive agenda…but he should be.

We are living in the 21st century. It is time we as a people decide to do something about the problems from the 20th century that we brought with us and have refused to address for a decade.

Can you think of a single American alive today who could do a better job of addressing long neglected issues than this President? Just one??