Have voters forgotten some things?

I'm sorry, did I miss something?

The last thing I remember for sure was the 1990s, you know, when Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich, created 8 million new jobs and generated a budget surplus. I vaguely recall the country didn't like that, I guess, and voted in another George Bush.

The next thing I knew it was 2008, and we were bogged down in two wars, were running $500 billion annual deficits and the financial system was about to collapse. I turned on the TV and some Republican treasury secretary, a former head of Goldman Sachs, was telling us we had to bail out the all these big financial banks or the world would end.

By year's end, we were losing 600,000 jobs a month, and the stock market had fallen off a cliff. The housing market was a mess and General Motors was near bankruptcy. All that was missing was the self-destructing tape, and this could have been an episode of “Mission Impossible.”

As soon as the new president got to work trying to get the country back on track, the Republicans did everything they could to stop him. I guess they liked the way things were in 2008. Here's the funny part: In 2010, the American voters seem ready to vote them back in again.

I'm sorry, did I miss something?

Larry Hodgden

Cedar Rapids