A Retrospective: Bush & the GOP’s Promises VS Reality

Does anyone remember this?

Nope. Probably not. That’s why it’s being posted here… to remind us all.

In the first Presidential Debate in 2000 with Vice President Al Gore, Jr. and former Texas governor & GOP candidate George W. Bush, the forum included questions on the topics of budget & economy, governmental reform, healthcare, Social Security, tax reform, education, energy & oil, foreign policy, homeland security, war & peace, and abortion.

As you read the responses below, consider how the contradictions in then candidate George W. Bush’s responses later emerged during his two terms as president.

Budget & Economy
George W. Bush: Claim of Gore’s 20,000 new bureaucrats is unlikely.
George W. Bush: Claim of 1/4 for important projects is overestimate.
Al Gore: Surest way to bust economy is Bush’s tax cuts.
Al Gore: After 8 years of prosperity, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”.
Al Gore: Prosperity results from current policy plus entrepreneurship.
George W. Bush: Prosperity results from entrepreneurship & ingenuity.
George W. Bush: Surest way to bust economy is Gore’s enlarged government.

Examining Presidential records: Jobs – Public (government) & Private sector under Bush & Obama.

“Private sector job creation under President Obama has far exceeded private sector job creation under President Bush. 40 months into his presidential term, there are currently more private sector jobs in the economy than when Obama came into office. At the same point in President Bush’s term, the total number of private sector jobs was still down 1.7 percent from where it began.

“The numbers are even starker when measuring each president’s record from the moment job creation returned. Private sector job creation returned in February of 2010, the 13th month of President Obama’s term. Since then, the economy has added 4.3 million private sector jobs, a 4 percent increase.

“Under President Bush, the economy stopped shedding private sector jobs in July of 2003, fully 30 months into his administration. From that point until May of 2004, the economy added just 1.5 million private sector jobs, an increase of only 1.4 percent.

“But there is one area of job creation where President Bush clearly outshines President Obama: the public sector. Public sector employment is now down 608,000 workers since January 2009, a 2.7 percent decline. At the same point in President Bush’s term, public sector employment was up 3.7 percent. If, over the past 40 months, public sector employment had grown at the same pace as it did in President Bush’s first term, there would be 1.4 million additional people at work right now. That’d be enough to bring the unemployment rate down by nearly a full percentage point.”