Who's at fault?

Over the past number of months people have been throwing blame back and forth about who's responsible for the economic quagmire, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and regulating illegal immigration. Some people blame Obama, while others blame Bush. Some people claim it's the Republicans, and others lay the responsibility at the feet of the Democrats. Some say liberals, others say conservatives. Po-ta-to, po-tah-to, it's all the same day in and day out. Let's face it, we're all to blame really.
Let's start at the beginning, and I don't mean January 20, 2001, I say we go back a bit farther than that. Let's start in the 1970's. Richard Nixon got into office with the promise of ending the Vietnam War, which he did, but only after dramatically increasing the number of troops in the region, and expanding the scope of the fight to include neighboring countries. Then he resigns before he can be impeached because of the Watergate scandal. Nixon was highly paranoid, and just a bit delusional, which is always a great combination in a world leader, but Nixon did something that Republican presidents have not done since. Richard "I am not a crook" Nixon increased regulation on industries and corporations, and developed diplomatic and trade contracts with China. The Nixon administration gave us the Clean Water Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Plus, he opened up trade with the People's Republic of China in exchange for NOT officially recognizing Taiwan as an independent nation. Nixon also began the War on drugs, and pushed for universal healthcare. So, to recap, Nixon, a lifelong Republican, opened up trade with a socialist country, began a decades long effort to end the drug trade in the United States, advocated universal healthcare, ended the Vietnam War, and advanced environmental protections like no other president since Teddy Roosevelt.

Next comes Gerald Ford, the only president to have never been voted into the Oval Office. I like Gerald Ford. He was a bit clumsy, yet athletic. He was self deprecating, yet confident. He was very intelligent, without talking down to people. He was a good man. Too bad he wasn't allowed to be a good president. See, after Nixon resigned, Congress continued to look into the Watergate Scandal, news outlets continued dredging up new dirt about the issue, and the American people were focused on seeing it finished. Ford knew that, unless he did something drastic, nothing would get done in Washington to move the country forward. What did Ford do? He pardoned Richard Nixon, thus putting a stop to any, and all congressional investigations into the previous president's actions while in office. It was the correct decision, but it didn't help Ford one bit. He lost his re-election bid to a man who was so far outside of Washington politics that people were asking who he was.

Which brings us to Jimmy Carter. I have to say, I'm a huge fan of Carter. He didn't play politics as usual. He was grounded in real world issues and experience. He was extremely intelligent and well educated, but didn't feel the need to prove it. Unfortunately, none of this helped him get anything through Congress. It also didn't help him when he came up for re-election with the Iran Hostage Crisis in full swing. He lost to the patron saint of the Republican Party and the Teabag Movement, Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Reagan is where our current issues really begin. Back in 1980 the Iranians were holding 52 Americans from the US embassy for well over a year. The crisis lasted 444 days to be exact. Carter had tried a rescue attempt that was doomed to failure. The Iranians refused to talk to him to negotiate a peaceful settlement. Reagan walks in and says that if he's elected, he'll ende the crisis. Reagan wins the election, and as he's being sworn in as president on Jan 20, 1981, the hostages are released to US custody. Crisis averted, but wait, there's more. We still have the "Evil Empire" to deal with.

For those of you too young to remember, or those that have simply forgotten, the "evil empire" was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or, rather, the Soviet Union. The US had been engaged in a Cold War with the Soviets since the end of World War II in 1945. Reagan was determined to end the Cold War, so he did what any good capitalist does, he outspent them. Within the Soviet Union economic trade was generally restricted to countries that made up the USSR, for instance, Russia could trade with East Germany, but East Germany could not trade with France. This limited their ability to maintain a strong and vibrant economy in a world market. All of their money was simply flowing around within their system and not growing. Whereas, the US could trade with other countries, not just goods, but also debt. The US could loan money to foreign countries, and borrow from others, allowing our economy to fluctuate a bit, but remain fairly strong. Reagan recognized this and decided to increase spending within the Militray Industrial Complex of the United States. It ultimately worked. The Soviet Union could not keep up with the production of the US and its allies, and slowly began to crumble. The whole story is worthy of a different entry.

The problem is, in order to increase all of that spending and building, Reagan had to decrease a lot of the regulations that had been put into place during and after the Great Depression. Those regulations had been enacted to protect the US economy from collapsing like it had in 1929, as well as to keep financial institutes accountable for their actions. Reagan, systematically cut and snipped away at those policies to increase the value of the US dollar, allow an increase in more aggressive trading practices, and increase the value of American industry. All of that worked extremely well at the time. It also was not intended to be a permanent change. Those regulations were supposed to go back into effect once the Cold War was over, atleast that was the plan.

Reagan worked very closely with the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to decrease nuclear armament, decrease military spending, and increase trade opportunities with the USSR. All of this helped to end the reign of the Soviet Union, while increasing the strength and reach of the US economy.

Next comes George Herbert Walker Bush, or as many people refer to him now, Bush I. This George Bush continued the talks with the Soviet Union to end the Cold War, increased trading with the former enemy, and worked fairly well with Congress. Then came Iraq. In 1990 Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein, invaded the sovereign nation of Kuwait. Iraq claimed that Kuwait had previously belonged to them, which is technically true, and they wanted it back to increase their access to the Gulf of Arabia and repatriate the lost Iraqis. This upset the entire world community. The UN condemned the actions of Iraq, and the US vowed to free Kuwait. Nation after nation pledged support for the US, including troops and materiel. Even Iran, who calls the US the "Great Satan", promised assistance. Bush set a deadline for Hussein to pull out of Kuwait. Hussein refused. Bush began sending in the troops to begin preparations. Hussein said he would win. The deadline came and went. The world held it's collective breath to see who would win this game of chicken. Hussein refused to budge. So, the coalition forces of doezens of countries allied with the US, all led by Generals Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf, wiped the desert floor with Hussein's troops and expelled them from Iraq. The troops wanted to go all the way to Bagdad and get remove Hussein from power, but Bush had promised the Un he would cease hostilities as soon as Kuwait was freed. Bush pulled in the leash on his dogs of war, and helped rebuild Kuwait.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Iron Curtain, the Soviet Union collapsed. The Cold War was over, and the US had won. All of the regulatory policies that had been suspended in order to end the Cold War were supposed to be put back in place. Unfortunately, Bush had Iraq to contend with, and forgot about them. It was OK, he could deal with it in his second term. The problem is Bush never got that second term. The American people are fickle. You can't start a war and not finish it, and in the eyes of many Americans Desert Storm wasn't over.

Out goes George H.W. Bush, in comes Bill Clinton. Clinton never got around to replacing those regulatory policies either, but hey, the economy was booming, there weren't any clouds on the financial sky. It began to look like we didn't need the regulations, and for a while we didn't. Financial institutions were lending money without being aggressive. People were making fortunes seemingly overnight. The vast majority of the world loved us as heroes. Nothing seemed to be broken, so why fix it? Really, the most embarassing thing that happened was Clinton undergoing, and winning, and impeachment trial in the Senate, all beacuse of a little extra marital fun. Clinton finishes two terms as president with amzaing goodwill towards the US from the rest of the world, a booming economy, a huge surplus of money in the treasury, and a stain on a blue dress from The Gap.

Welcome George Walker Bush, otherwise known as W. I'm not going to get into the whole election mess here. First year in office and the US experiences the most heinous attack from a foreign source ever. Pearl Harbor, back in 1941, was a horrible attack, but the Japanese limited their focus on military targets. On September 11, 2001 Saudi born terrorists trained in both the US and Afghanistan, and were all here on legal visas, did the unthinkable. The world mourned alongside of us. We retaliated against Afghanistan, and helped the Afghani people to overthrow the Taliban run government. The world supported the United States in this. We were freeing an oppressed people from an authoritarian government they didn't want, and we were seeking justice for thousands of civilian deaths on Sept. 11.

Then came Iraq, again. Yes, Saddam Hussein was ahorrible man. Yes, Hussein killed thousands of his own citizens. Yes, Hussein was the dictator of a rogue nation. No, he didn't have ties to Al-Qaeda. No, he didn't have weapons of mass destruction. No, he didn't pose a real threat to the safety of the United States. His air force had been grounded for well over a decade because we sold him the aircraft, but wouldn't supply the parts and maintenance staff to keep them running. He didn't have the capability to produce long range missiles to attack the US. What armament the UN inspectors found was old and useless. In fact, the weaponry they found would have been a bigger danger to the Iraqis using them than to their intended targets. Did this stop W from finishing what he saw as his father's failing? No. So, into Iraq we go again. The mission in Afghanistan goes on the back burner, in favor of W's crusade into Bagdad.

Where does that leave the regulatory policies Reagan suspended in the 1980's? The ones that Bush Sr. was supposed to put back in place? The ones that were forgotten about by Clinton because the economy was doing well? Languishing in some history book, that's where. W wasn't about to put the squeeze on his buddies running the large companies, nor was he going to lose focus on his goal of taming Iraq. This left the financial institutions to begin getting more and more aggressive with their lending practices. People were still living on credit that they got used to back in the 1990's. American auto makers kept pumping out huge, gas guzzling machines. it was business as usual. Then everything went down the drain.

The economy tanked. Financial institutions began crushing the American dream that they sold people who couldn't afford it. People stopped buying large, American made cars in favor of imports with better gas mileage. The recession began. W began bailing out corporations. He tried stimulating the economy with tax rebates, and tax credits. Meanwhile, he was spending more and more money and American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama enters office, and all of his supporters think that he'll fix everything overnight, while all of his detractors begin blaming him for all of our woes. Obama continues the bailouts to keep large American employers from closing their doors and putting more Americans out of work. He did the same exact thing W did, and he gets flack over it from the Teabaggers. He wants to replace the regulations that had been forgotten about years ago, and he gets flack about that from the Teabaggers. Meanwhile, the Teabaggers are touting their love of all things Reagan, forgetting that it was Reagan who actually began all of this mess in the first place. Not to mention that everyone wants to continue spending as though it was 1999.

So, you see, through the strategic economic planning of one president, a snowball effect of spend, spend, spend was put into place. This pattern of continually spending money noone has has led to the economic collapse and turmoil we've seen. What began as a way of ending the Cold War has been our undoing. This is the second time in less than a century that we have faced the lesson that corporations need government regulation, and the second time we've been burnt by it. We ALL need to learn the lesson.