Four Short Years Ago
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- September
- 30
I imagine that George W. Bush must be asking himself this question: Was I better off four years ago?
The answer, of course, is yes, he was better off four years ago. Ah, remember the good old days? Like the R.E.M song says it’s the end of the world as we know it.
Back when, Bush had all that “political capital” he was planning to spend. And you do remember what he was going to spend it on? That’s right! He was going to push for the privatization of Social Security. The idea was based on the notion that the individual citizen could best determine his or her future by opening private accounts with their benefits invested in Wall Street.
A lot of people were against it then, and the idea went nowhere. But now it looks positively insane, given the great financial meltdown not seen since the Great Depression.
The irony is amazing. Bush pushed for the so-called “ownership society,” and look what happened. With the $700 billion Wall Street bailout on the table, Bush is pushing for ownership, alright. And it’s the federal government that’s going to be the owner.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 6:10 pm by Phil Reisman.
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Phil Reisman is a veteran journalist and native of Westchester County. He began his career in 1977 as the head copy boy of a startup New York City newspaper that quickly went belly up. Reisman was not to blame for the newspaper's failure, or so he claims.
