Did Bush do anything right?

[Eldritch Warlord]

Aid for Africa. That was nice of him.

As opposed to national health care for us?

Yes I know. I'm bitter too, for the exact same reasons I expect.

Do either of you realize how much a nationalized health care system would cost in the US?

Take this Wikipedia article comparing the US and Canadian health care systems. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_and_American_health_care_systems_compared]

The Canadian government funds about 70% of health care while the US government funds about 45%. Even with this disparity the US government spends about 25% more per capita (also keep in mind that the US has more than 10 times the population).

While the US may be the only industrialized nation without a universal health care system it's government still spends more per capita on health care than any other nation.

Note: For those who might be unaware "capita" is a word used in economics and statistics to indicate "person" (capita is Latin for head).

EDIT:

We need isolationism, he was the oppisite.

Are you serious? Isolationism has never, ever, in the history of Earth been beneficial to anyone or anything.

 

[CIA]

Aid for Africa. That was nice of him.

As opposed to national health care for us?

Yes I know. I'm bitter too, for the exact same reasons I expect.

Do either of you realize how much a nationalized health care system would cost in the US?

Take this Wikipedia article comparing the US and Canadian health care systems. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_and_American_health_care_systems_compared]

The Canadian government funds about 70% of health care while the US government funds about 45%. Even with this disparity the US government spends about 25% more per capita (also keep in mind that the US has more than 10 times the population).

While the US may be the only industrialized nation without a universal health care system it's government still spends more per capita on health care than any other nation.

Note: For those who might be unaware "capita" is a word used in economics and statistics to indicate "person" (capita is Latin for head).

Then lets raise me some taxes!

 

[Galaxy613]

Aid for Africa. That was nice of him.

As opposed to national health care for us?

Yes I know. I'm bitter too, for the exact same reasons I expect.

Do either of you realize how much a nationalized health care system would cost in the US?

Take this Wikipedia article comparing the US and Canadian health care systems. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_and_American_health_care_systems_compared]

The Canadian government funds about 70% of health care while the US government funds about 45%. Even with this disparity the US government spends about 25% more per capita (also keep in mind that the US has more than 10 times the population).

While the US may be the only industrialized nation without a universal health care system it's government still spends more per capita on health care than any other nation.

Note: For those who might be unaware "capita" is a word used in economics and statistics to indicate "person" (capita is Latin for head).

Yeah but, Obama is working towards this, so it's just Bush being a downer instead of money really being a object that Obama needs to worry about. Stupid Bush.

 

[dnnydllr]

Aid for Africa. That was nice of him.

As opposed to national health care for us?

You do realize that national health care would suck ass right?
Yeah it's free...but it's also unavailable due to the massive waiting lists their would be.

 

[Barry93]

Contrary to popular belief, it was actually a pretty average presidency. One could argue that Bush lead us into a recession; 1) it was hardly his fault 2) he lead us out of one during his first term. After 9/11, he and the CIA thwarted many terrorist attacks; mostly notably stopping the planned attack on LA and most recent preventing an attack on the Brooklyn bridge. his education policies were 'meh' but those standarized tests were actually pretty easy. Bush gave aid to Africa for diseases; saved over million people's lives. Now the middle east has been a crap hole the last 5,000 years and nothings going to change it so I while i agree with Saddam's removal it is impossible to bring order to war-torn wasteland and I think Bush should have just left when we got him, but I guess he was just trying to make sure a dictator wouldn't rule iraq again. Overall Bush did what was right, not what was popular. Also, I applaud Bush for using harsh interrogation against terrorists

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

Then lets raise me some taxes!

Increased taxes infallibly lead to economic recession.

 

[runedeadthA]

I'm not sure if anyone else has seen/posted this picture... damn can't find it.
It showed bush looking at poster of his accomplishments and failures, under failures it had: iraq, afghanistan etc etc... Under Accomplishments it had: Dodged That Shoe!

 

[Seekster]

Now Bush is not my favorite President by any means but I think the man gets blamed for A WHOLE LOT more than he should be. Only time will tell what his legacy will be but I think he will be remembered more fondly by our children than most people might think. Sure probably still an average President in terms of performance but not nearly as bad as many people today think he was. I also maintain that Bush did a better job than Gore or Kerry could have done. His main problem was his lack of ability to communicate and persuade others to see things his way.

 

[RebelRising]

Aid for Africa. That was nice of him.

As opposed to national health care for us?

You do realize that national health care would suck ass right?
Yeah it's free...but it's also unavailable due to the massive waiting lists their would be.

Again, it's all a matter of where resources are expended; cutbacks on unnecessary militarization and faulty foreign policy (i.e., most of it) could result in being able to afford sufficient healthcare for everyone. Sure, it's unlikely to be the same quality as now, but at least people won't be dying because they couldn't afford to go to the doctors. Medicaid and Medicare can only do so much, but without a more secure health safety net, our taxes will be going into entirely unprofitable ventures.

But hey, at least those Ethiopian hut dwellers will be a smart investment when, in maybe twenty years, they has some semblance of an economy.

 

[rainman2203]

I can't really think of much that I approved of, but there was probably some little behind the scenes stuff that was a good call. My favorite part of his presidency was when the Constitution required him to GTFO.

 

[Thunderhorse31]

Bush became a pariah because he was a dim-wit and couldn't explain anything well at all. Most of the crap happening now is the result of forces 10-20 years in the works (housing market crash has been coming for a while, deposing Saddam was official U.S. policy even under Clinton and they violated 19 U.N. resolutions to boot, etc.) and can't be blamed SOLELY on him, though it can be said that he could have done more.

He DID warn Congress (the Democratic congress) several times that more needed to be done to turn the economy around before it tanked, but nothing got done. Of course, people are short-sighted and retarded, and like to blame everything on the person who just left - so if in 20 years Obama's plans to reduce the debt have failed, and his programs end up spending even MORE money, I'm sure we'll just blame it on whoever serves after him. "Obama was great he made all these programs to try and stimulate the economy, but so-and-so took over and made them fail and now we're in debt! Boo hoo!"

In sum, I'm not a huge Bush fan, but I'm not about to blame him for the whole world's problems either.

So to borrow Yahtzee's line: To balance out the seriousness of this post,

Boingo
Boingo
Whoopsie
Knickers

 

[Velocirapture07]

Bush didn't, but Cheney shot a guy in the face.

I live in europe, and we've only read the stories about his screw-ups, so I wouldn't really know

This makes me sad.

 

[dnnydllr]

Aid for Africa. That was nice of him.

As opposed to national health care for us?

You do realize that national health care would suck ass right?
Yeah it's free...but it's also unavailable due to the massive waiting lists their would be.

Again, it's all a matter of where resources are expended; cutbacks on unnecessary militarization and faulty foreign policy (i.e., most of it) could result in being able to afford sufficient healthcare for everyone. Sure, it's unlikely to be the same quality as now, but at least people won't be dying because they couldn't afford to go to the doctors. Medicaid and Medicare can only do so much, but without a more secure health safety net, our taxes will be going into entirely unprofitable ventures.

But hey, at least those Ethiopian hut dwellers will be a smart investment when, in maybe twenty years, they has some semblance of an economy.

It isn't necessarily about the money. More of how many people there would be overflowing doctors with the most meager of problems, now that they didn't have to pay for it. I think there should be a system where those who truly need it, or as you said are dying, should be covered under some form of a government program.
Nationalizing anything is a terrible idea because the government hasn't the slightest idea what they are doing.

 

[dnnydllr]

You do realize that national health care would suck ass right?
Yeah it's free...but it's also unavailable due to the massive waiting lists their would be.

Hope this works. From I Drew This [http://www.idrewthis.org/d/20050812.html]:

Haha...funny...and that's what emergency rooms are for....

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

That's because our corporate-owned healthcare system is hideously inefficient, thanks to all the soulless bureaucracies trying to turn a profit off of our lives. The French get better healthcare, and cheaper, too!

The majority of hospitals are non-profit and the World Health Organization actually ranks the US as the best country in terms of medical costs and responsiveness of health care.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States