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by pseudohadamard 102 days ago
That wasn't necessarily Bush personally, who was never the sharpest knife in the drawer, but his strategists. The Republicans had convinced themselves that surpluses encouraged government spending so by wiping them out and "starving the beast" as they put it the resulting financial crunch would create a need to slash spending, cut social welfare, and reduce the size of government.

Actually now that it's set out like that, the strategists were just as much in la-la land as Bush was.
2 comments
jfengel 102 days ago
But they never did starve anything. Even DOGE didn't cut a significant fraction of the budget. They just eliminated a bunch of ideological enemies and quit early.

They didn't even pretend to reduce the entitlement programs that they claim to hate, but are fiercely defended by the elderly, who overwhelmingly vote for them.

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Gud 102 days ago
That George Bush the 2nd is a doofus is a finely crafted PR image.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

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