Mr. Cal Thomas, I have just read your article, “GOP On The Dark Side.” I agree with you that America’s debt is out of control. However, you seem to have gotten selective amnesia regarding how this country got there.
Republicans have been great at highlighting our debt since Obama became president. You seem to have forgotten that when George W. Bush took over the presidency the country had a budget surplus left by a Democrat, one Bill Clinton.
Under Bush, a Republican whom I’m sure you remember, the budget and the deficit developed and grew. Why did this happen? One guess, please. The answer is wars. As a congressman friend who sat on the House Budget Committee told me, wars cost money.
George W. Bush and Republican neo-cons took the United States into a war that has proven to be the worst foreign policy decision of our time. A war we are now mired in for many years to come. A war in which the Republican administration of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others said we would be viewed as “liberators.”
Instead, what it has done is made Osama bin Laden a martyr who said that by taking down the twin towers, he would bankrupt America. Given our country’s current debt, he is on the way to accomplishing his goal.
Bush, by invading Iraq, unleashed an Islamic world backlash that had quietly left America alone. The Middle East dictators had kept the region under control. Yet, Bush felt that regime change was needed there.
Why? Was it to get revenge on Saddam Hussein for what happened in the Gulf wars? Was it for control of the oil? One can speculate as to what the real reason was, but this decision has cost America dearly.
The Bush administration has never put the cost of the war on the books. Yet we know it has cost trillions of dollars, much of which just disappeared. And look at where it has left the country and accomplished nothing. But Republicans want to blame President Obama for the rising debt. And just think that Republicans are calling for more war.
In addition to the wars, Republicans and some Democrats have voted for legislation that has raided every fund they could mainly to enrich themselves and their rich constituents. We cannot give people on Social Security a cost of living adjustment. We can’t repair our infrastructure, we can’t afford to do anything for our country because the money is going overseas.
So, Mr. Thomas, please come out of your amnesia shell and smell the roses. Put the blame for America’s $18 trillion debt where it belongs: with the Republicans.
Daniel Lowry
Fayetteville, Ga.
