W's Crystal Ball

George W. Bush called out the MAGA agenda years before Trump rode down that escalator. pic.twitter.com/17U0d1DkBy

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) June 7, 2025

I've had my differences with George Bush, but he nailed this one.

Our Coming Debt Crisis

Ten to 20 years from now, we will not be talking about impeachment, and believe it or not, we won't still be talking about Donald Trump either. We will be talking about our debt crisis. For all the good that came from this era, the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations will all be remembered as the ones that caused the crisis that will hammer our children and grandchildren. To understand where we are, it's helpful to review the past few years of this issue's development.

At the Bush White House, where I worked for eight years, we knew we had a long-term entitlement program spending problem coming down the track, but we thought of it as far off in the future. Unfortunately, the Bush administration was horrible about spending. For an administration that campaigned on limited government, we increased non-defense discretionary spending 8% a year during our first term. We also added even bigger increases to the defense side. We introduced a new entitlement for prescription drugs for all Americans instead of targeting it for the needy.

By the second term, the budget hawks were trying to put on the brakes, but with war spending and then Hurricane Katrina, we never really got discretionary spending under control. Finally, with the financial crisis, we stopped even trying. Throw in the booming entitlements, and we left a really bad legacy. To George Bush's credit, he did expend a lot of political capital on Social Security reform. He jumped on this issue before the country was ready -- and nothing got done.
 
In 2008, federal government spending neared an inflation-adjusted record of $28,388 per American household -- the highest level since World War II -- up from $21,891 per household in 2001. Sixty percent of all that new spending was in areas unrelated to defense and homeland security.

During the Obama years, with all the talk of stimulus, the spending just got worse. President Barack Obama ran historically massive trillion-dollar-plus deficits his first few years, when he had a Democratic Congressional majority. Republicans in Congress tried to fight this massive spending with limited success. Some Republicans also tried to raise the entitlement issue, again with no real success. The Obama years were notable as a time when most Republican voters and politicians seemed to really care about our spending and debt problem.

After screaming about spending for eight years of Obama, Republicans have been pretty silent about it during the Trump years. There has been no Republican discussion of entitlement reform, which makes things look more than a little partisan after all the shutdown fights over spending under Obama. Trump has taken the entitlement issue off the table completely, which makes sense politically, because voters are not open to it, but from a policy perspective, we are getting closer and closer to the tipping point into a debt crisis.

Read the rest here.

Many Years!

To George and Barbara Bush on their 70th (!) wedding anniversary.

“I married the first man I ever kissed; when I tell my children that they just about throw up.” -Barbara Bush

HT: Fr. Z

A Class Act

Former President George H.W. Bush (41) shaved his head as a sign of support for the son of one of his Secret Service guards who has been stricken with cancer.

Read the story here.

Prayers for the boys recovery.

Former President George Bush (41) Is Seriously Ill

Former president George H.W. Bush spent Christmas in a Houston hospital with a rising fever, his office confirms.

Spokesman Jim McGrath said in a statement Wednesday evening that doctors have put Bush in the intensive care unit and on a liquid diet.

“Following a series of setbacks including a persistent fever, President Bush was admitted to the intensive care unit at Methodist Hospital on Sunday where he remains in guarded condition,” McGrath said. “Doctors at Methodist continue to be cautiously optimistic about the current course of treatment. The President is alert and conversing with medical staff, and is surrounded by family.”

The 88-year-old has been in and out of Methodist Hospital since early November, battling a severe cough. In recent days, he has been undergoing physical therapy to rebuild his strength. Doctors expected he would be able to go home for Christmas, but Bush developed a fever that has left him weak.

Read the rest here.

Supreme Court wrestles with Executive vs Legislative powers

WASHINGTON - US Supreme Court justices on Monday seemed to back the Obama administration's position that only the president can recognize foreign states, as they heard the case of a boy born in Jerusalem to American parents who want his passport to list Israel as his birthplace.

The parents of 9-year-old Menachem Zivotofsky argued that the move should be made under a 2002 law - passed weeks before Menachem was born - that included a provision allowing Israel to be listed as the place of birth on the passport of any American citizen born in Jerusalem.

At stake in the diplomatically sensitive case is whether the executive branch has exclusive control over dealings with foreign nations, or whether Congress and the courts also have a say.

While Israel calls Jerusalem its "eternal and indivisible" capital, few other states accept that status. Most countries, including the United States, maintain their embassies to Israel in Tel Aviv.

The Palestinians want East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967, as capital of the state they aim to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, alongside Israel.

Zivotofsky was born on Oct. 17, 2002, in a hospital in west Jerusalem. The State Department, applying long-standing US policy, insisted his birth certificate show Jerusalem - with no country specified - as the place of birth, not Israel as his mother requested.

Nathan Lewin, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney arguing on behalf of the boy and his parents, who attended the arguments, said Congress properly exercised its power over passports and it can control a passport's contents.

President George W. Bush signed the law, but refused to follow it on the grounds it infringed on the president's power to formulate foreign policy. The Obama administration agreed.

Source.

In general I agree with the administration on the issue of authority in matters related to foreign affairs.  Congress overstepped its bounds.  Here though is my problem.

Bush SIGNED THE LAW.  And then he issued a so called "signing statement" saying he would not abide by it.  Sorry, it doesn't work that way.  Someone should have given George a remedial crash course in basic civics before he was allowed to become President.  There is no such animal as a "signing statement" anywhere in the Constitution.  What Bush was clearly trying to do was give himself a line item veto, and not just over spending bills.  But once again there is no provision to be found for this in the Constitution.  Once a president signs a bill it is law... ALL OF IT.  And no, you don't get to pick and choose which parts you will abide by.  This is merely one of many reasons I think George W Bush will go down as one of our country's worst presidents.  He should have been impeached for this alone.

Sadly it appears Zero is once again demonstrating that we basically got G. W. Bush's third term on yet another subject.  Obama has  decided he too likes "signing statements."  How's that "change" we voted for working for you?

Happy Birthday

Happy 85th to former president G. H. W. Bush (the good one). He celebrated his birthday by skydiving (I am not kidding). Personally I have never seen the point in jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, but to each their own. I understand that the first time he did this it was not voluntary. His airplane had just been perforated with multiple holes courtesy of the Japanese and after parachuting into the pacific ocean he spent some time drifting around before a submarine rescued the future commander in chief.

By happy coincidence it is also my own birthday. I however have no plans that involve anything more adventurous than taking advantage of a fast free Friday.

And now for a little humor: Felons Seeking Bush Pardon Near a Record

WASHINGTON — Felons are asking President Bush for pardons and commutations at historic levels as he nears his final months in office, a time when many other presidents have granted a flurry of clemency requests.

Among the petitioners is Michael Milken, the billionaire former junk bond king turned philanthropist, who is seeking a pardon for his 1990 conviction for securities fraud, the Justice Department said. Mr. Milken sought a pardon eight years ago from President Bill Clinton, and submitted a new petition in June.

In addition, prominent federal inmates are asking Mr. Bush to commute their sentences. Among them are Randy Cunningham, the former Republican congressman from California; Edwin W. Edwards, a former Democratic governor of Louisiana; John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban; and Marion Jones, the former Olympic sprinter.

The requests are adding to a backlog of nearly 2,300 pending petitions, most from “ordinary people who committed garden-variety crimes,” said Margaret Colgate Love, a clemency lawyer.

Ms. Love, who was the United States pardon attorney from 1990 to 1997, said the backlog was overwhelming the vetting system, meaning that many petitions might not reach Mr. Bush’s desk before he leaves office.

“I have cases that date from the Clinton administration,” Ms. Love said. “I have cases that I filed in the last two or three years and have not even gotten any word about the first step of the investigation being authorized. It’s unbelievable.”

A Justice Department office with about half a dozen officials reviews petitions and recommends whether requests should be granted, although presidents are free to disregard its views. Under the Constitution, Mr. Bush can issue a commutation, which reduces a sentence, or a pardon, which forgives an offense and erases the criminal record, to anyone.

But even if a felon’s petition reaches the Oval Office, legal specialists said that most of those seeking mercy from Mr. Bush should expect to be disappointed.

The Bush administration took office amid heavy criticism of Mr. Clinton’s last-minute pardons, most notably to Marc Rich, the fugitive financier whose ex-wife had donated to Mr. Clinton’s presidential library.

Against that backdrop, Mr. Bush has made little use of his clemency powers, granting just 44 pardons and two commutations. By comparison, over eight years in office President Ronald Reagan granted clemency 409 times and Mr. Clinton 459 times. More than half of Mr. Clinton’s grants came in his final three months.

-From an article in The New York Times.

Ordinary garden variety offenders who have turned their lives around years and often decades after a mistake have something close to zero chance of getting a pardon from this President. But one of the top aides to his Vice President got his jail sentence commuted after he was caught lying in court about the administration's role in exposing the identity of a CIA agent. This in retaliation for public criticism from her husband of the misleading statements made by the administration in the lead up to our war in Iraq. I find it difficult to associate the word "Christian" with this administration.