Tweet
THE WORLD FROM WASHINGTONMichael Hirsh
Whatever you think about the actual state our union is in, there is little doubt George W. Bush has profoundly transformed it. "Tonight is a red-letter night in American history," a campaigning Hillary Clinton told a crowd in Connecticut Monday, redirecting her ire momentarily from Barack Obama back to Bush. "It is the last time George Bush will give the State of the Union. Next year it will be a Democratic president giving it." Perhaps. But curb your enthusiasm, Sen. Clinton: it will still be Bush who dictates what you or any other president will talk about a year hence—and probably for many years after that.
Across the board, Bush has pursued policies that, for better or worse, will set the agenda for the next president and probably define his or her entire tenure. On the economy, Bush's successor will be left with a narrow, nail-biting set of choices, thanks to the lack of fiscal discipline over the last seven years (which turned a $236 billion surplus into a huge deficit), a dramatically changed tax structure and, now, what will likely be known as the Bush recession. Things were so dire this week that even the managing director of the fiscally strict International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, told the Financial Times that America and other countries had to loosen their already lax purse strings and do more deficit spending, despite the fact that the dollar is under attack due to America's overspending. Throw into that mix a new, Bush-appointed Federal Reserve chief, Ben Bernanke, who has nine years to go in his term, and you have to conclude that Bush will cast a shadow that will linger long after he leaves office next January.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/105883
Whatever you think about the actual state our union is in, there is little doubt George W. Bush has profoundly transformed it. "Tonight is a red-letter night in American history," a campaigning Hillary Clinton told a crowd in Connecticut Monday, redirecting her ire momentarily from Barack Obama back to Bush. "It is the last time George Bush will give the State of the Union. Next year it will be a Democratic president giving it." Perhaps. But curb your enthusiasm, Sen. Clinton: it will still be Bush who dictates what you or any other president will talk about a year hence—and probably for many years after that.
Across the board, Bush has pursued policies that, for better or worse, will set the agenda for the next president and probably define his or her entire tenure. On the economy, Bush's successor will be left with a narrow, nail-biting set of choices, thanks to the lack of fiscal discipline over the last seven years (which turned a $236 billion surplus into a huge deficit), a dramatically changed tax structure and, now, what will likely be known as the Bush recession. Things were so dire this week that even the managing director of the fiscally strict International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, told the Financial Times that America and other countries had to loosen their already lax purse strings and do more deficit spending, despite the fact that the dollar is under attack due to America's overspending. Throw into that mix a new, Bush-appointed Federal Reserve chief, Ben Bernanke, who has nine years to go in his term, and you have to conclude that Bush will cast a shadow that will linger long after he leaves office next January.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/105883
Comment