State of the Union 2014

[cwolff]

My brother-in-law insists tow truck drivers have a starting wage of 35 dollars an hour in California. I don't know why everyone doesn't just take the 6 week class to get the license they need then move to California and make 75k a year. It would solve the poverty crises in this country overnight. My brother-in-law is a tow truck driver thinking of moving to California if no one caught on to that.

I'd wager that the best paid tow truck drivers are incentive based.

Since when do we overlook a president's lack of action when assigning blame? What policy of Bush's can we look to that actually led to the financial crises and high unemployment? I hear Democrats all of the time screaming it was due to the "Failed Bush policies" but does anyone have any specifics?

Bush tax cuts, War in Iraq. I'll let Fareed explain:

“The ‘Bush tax cuts,’ passed in 2001 and 2003, remain the single largest cause of America’s structural deficit — that is, the deficit not caused by the collapse in tax revenue when the economy goes into recession. The Bush administration inherited budget surpluses from the Clinton administration. What turned these into deficits, even before the recession? There were three fundamental new costs: the tax cuts, the Medicare prescription-drug bill and post-9/11 security spending (including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). Of these the tax cuts were by far the largest, adding up to $2.3 trillion over 10 years. According to the Congressional Budget Office, nearly half the cost of all legislation enacted from 2001 to 2007 can be attributed to the tax cuts.” [Zakaria, Washington Post, 8/2/10]