Greenspan Book Criticizes Bush And Republicans

There has been much criticism of the Bush administration from the political right. One of the best books examining the failures of this administration is Imposter: : How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy by Bruce Bartlett. Much of the criticism revolves around his economic policies, or lack thereof. For someone that was supposed to be a conservative Republican, has has demonstrated remarkably little fiscal discipline. Examples of this include "No Child Left Behind" and the Medicare Drug bill.

While Bartlett's book does an excellent job of detailing the shortcomings of this Administration, it never received the attention that Alan Greenspan's forthcoming book The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World is about to receive. There are some very interesting quotes from the book in this Wall Street Journal article that gives us a taste of that is to come. For example,

Mr. Greenspan, who calls himself a "lifelong libertarian Republican," writes that he advised the White House to veto some bills to curb "out-of-control" spending while the Republicans controlled Congress. He says President Bush's failure to do so "was a major mistake." Republicans in Congress, he writes, "swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose.

He is so right. With this sort of stinging criticism coming from a man of Greenspan's stature and credibility, we can only hope that Republicans can learn from this disaster and will emerge smarter and stronger for it.