In keeping with a theme I use frequently ("this is the information age"), I thought it would be fun to search for the 2000 election promises of Bush and Cheney, and see how they match up to the reality of 2008.
I'll show how I found a website that no loner exists, go through the first few of their campaign promises as quickly as I can, and then wrap it all up at the end. This may be a long read, but it will certainly be worth it.
It all starts below the fold...
How I found the page...
Many web-based locations have archives. Google 'caches' pages in its searches, for example, giving anyone the ability to see what a page looked like before a recent change or deletion. This technique was used recently when Huffington Post noted that the Vicki Iseman page was deleted from the Alcade and Faye website. They were, fortunately, able to show what the page looked like. Here's the image from their story.
In the case of HuffPo, the archive they used was something called the Wayback Machine at archive.org. Wayback lets you search through "85 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago." If we were to use a library analogy: it doesn't matter how quickly someone tries to cover their tracks by shredding a book because Wayback has multiple copies of that book, stored forever on its shelves, untouchable.
For the 2000 election, the Bush-Cheney site was at http://www.georgewbush.com/ ...so I will enter that address into the search bar and away we go.
Wayback has multiple archives from Jan 25, 1999 to June 28, 2007. After that date, the address redirects you to www.gop.com. I'm going to randomly pick November 9, 1999 for my search.
There's an Issues link on the side of the page. I'll click on that. And I'm in. The promises of George Walker Bush to the American people a year before the election.
The promises that were meant to be broken...
Education
Governor Bush will reform the nation's public schools, as he has in Texas, which is one of two states that have made the greatest recent progress in education. He will close the achievement gap, set high standards, promote character education, and ensure school safety. States will be offered freedom from federal regulation, but will be held accountable for results. Performance will be measured annually, and parents will be empowered with information and choices.
Four words: No Child Left Behind. Or as one expert put it: "It's a grim mess."
Education never received the funding it deserved. Bush has cut funding on education, and reading levels have dropped in the US since 2002. The same applies to other grades and to other subgroups including African-American and Hispanic students.
Taxes
Governor Bush believes that roughly one-quarter of the surplus should be returned to the people who earned it through broad tax cuts... otherwise, Washington will spend it. His plan will promote economic growth and increase access to the middle class by cutting high marginal rates. It will also double the child credit, eliminate the death tax, reduce the marriage penalty, and expand Education Savings Accounts and charitable deductions. The largest percentage cuts will go to the lowest income earners. As a result, 6 million families will no longer pay federal income tax.
There's a terrible idea. Return the surplus to the American people, or the government might use it. To give our troops proper protective armor, or to offset the coming recession caused by an instability in the Middle East and a lack of regulation in the free-market of lending.
I'm getting ahead of myself. You may have noticed the old bogeyman... Death Tax. Sounds scary. All those farmers, we were told, losing farms because they had to pay Estate Tax. And then the truth was revealed... President Bush, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association have asserted that the estate tax is destroying family farms. None, however, have cited a case of a farm lost to estate taxes, although in June 2001 Mr. Bush said he had talked to such farmers.
Once again: the people that had a vested interest in being able to show you just ONE case study of a farmer that lost their farm because of the Estate Tax came up with ...nothing. Nada, sod all, zip, nicht.
Social Security
Governor Bush believes Social Security is a defining American promise that must be kept. He will not change benefits in any way for current retirees or those near retirement. But to save Social Security for the next generation, he will lead a bipartisan effort to reform it by giving individuals the option of voluntarily investing a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes in personal retirement accounts. These accounts will earn higher rates of return and generate wealth that can be owned and passed on from parents to their children.
Oh, he tried to change benefits all right. On April 5,2005, Bush called the Treasury Bonds that secure the future of our elderly "just IOUs". $1.7 trillion in T-bonds that make up the trust fund were just "sitting in a filing cabinet". Bush's plan: to put this money in the Stock Markets.
When Bush took office on January 20, 2001, the Dow Jones started the day at 10587.59 points. At the end of the week that George Bush called T-bonds "just IOUs", the Down closed at 10461.34.
Those IOUs had increased in value through their guaranteed rate of return and compound reinvestment. If $1.7 trillion dollars had been in the Dow Jones industrial Average, it would have lost 1.1925% of its value.
Bush wanted to move a sure thing into a system that would have wiped $20,272,500 out. Never to be seen by a single senior. And that's if he were to move it into the Dow. As opposed to, say, companies that were closely allied to him.
Imagine $1.7 trillion in Enron. A no-bid contract to have those funds under Kenneth Lay. The man that loaned Bush a helicopter for the 2000 Election. Taking millions more in options, until decades-worth of careful investing was turned into nothing.
Don't think it could have happened? It's not only possible for one person's stupidity to crash a financial system that has stood since the 1700s, it has happened in real life. One man, the Queen's personal bank and the financier of the Napoleonic Wars, gone. The film version starred Ewan MacGregor. It's a good flick, you should Netflix it.
Defense
Governor Bush believes that a strong, capable and modern military is the foundation of the peace we enjoy today and hope to extend for future generations. The military of the present must be better supported and respected. It must also be challenged and transformed to become the military of the future. The right choices must be made to renew the bond of trust between the President and the military, protect America with an effective national missile defense, and create a military capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st Century.
Holy crap, where do I start?
How about with "a strong, capable and modern military is the foundation of the peace we enjoy today and hope to extend for future generations" turning into "you go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want"? How about Walter Reed. How about mothers sending their sons proper bulletproof equipment.
How about this nation spends more on its military than the rest of the world and all the missile defense in the world wouldn't have stopped a bunch of Saudis from getting on four planes and smacking them into buildings, on Bush's watch?
How about the fact that you were spoiling for war in Iraq from Day One, you lying son of a bitch?
In summary...
There are thirty-one campaign issues on this page. I certainly don't have time to go through them all. But these first few should give us all a starting point. Go to the page, find something that was obviously a crock, and comment here. Maybe you're one of the people that is forced to pay into Medicare Part 'D', because if you don't ...well, it's like a Mafia protection racket ("don't pay this year, it'll cost you 12% next year in Late Enrollment Penalties. If you know what's good for you..."). Maybe it's the energy policy that lets the oil companies 'f' us in the 'a-hole'. Maybe it's the way that Bush used this sentence: "The federal government is expected to run a surplus of nearly $5 trillion during the next ten years" to borrow and spend until there was no chance of a surplus at all.
Thanks for reading. Now it's your turn to write.
Here's that link to the 2000 Issues page again.