You Gotta Be Kidding Me
By Anthony Gregory • Friday November 13, 2009 10:04 AM PDT • 21 Comments
George W. Bush is launching a free-market think tank. The Washington Times reports:
With the Obama administration establishing far-reaching controls in the auto, real estate and financial sectors, Mr. Bush said that “the role of government is not to create wealth, but to create the conditions that allow entrepreneurs and innovators to thrive.”
So the guy who began the auto bailouts, whose federal “Ownership Society” was key in creating the biggest speculative bubble in memory, who had bragged in 2004 for having “passed the strongest corporate reforms since Franklin Roosevelt,” who trashed the Bill of Rights, inflated the welfare state and expanded government faster and in more directions than any president since Vietnam, if not since World War II — this guy is now promoting free markets and criticizing big government? This would be obscene if it weren’t so laughable.
Tags: Bailouts, Economics, Housing, Politics, Presidential Power, Regulation, Socialism 
Lol, the “Left” will sure get a kick out of this.
Michael Orlowski(The Orlonater/ChainedOrlo) | Nov 13, 2009 | Reply
Anthony took the words out of my mouth with the title of this post.....
Wes Dillard | Nov 13, 2009 | Reply
W is going to put The Onion out of business.
Steve Hogan | Nov 13, 2009 | Reply
This would be funny if it weren’t so obscene.
Jim | Nov 13, 2009 | Reply
This is going to be a disaster for the free market. Now the left gets to pretend that Bush was a “laissez-faire” president and can actually point to Bush’s think tank.
Could Bush have started a free market think tank because he wants to deliberately discredit the free market?
Brad | Nov 13, 2009 | Reply
Wow. History does repeat itself after all.
lukas | Nov 13, 2009 | Reply
Remember that when Hoover left office, he warned Roosevelt of spending too much money. Hoover was the least qualified person to lecture Roosevelt on the expenditure of government money.
Jonathan Finegold Catalán | Nov 13, 2009 | Reply
To Hoover’s credit, he set up the institution largely if not mostly to cover the question of war, which he was indeed better on than FDR.
Anthony Gregory | Nov 14, 2009 | Reply
Steve Hogan: Any time I read something about W, I hope it’s just The Onion or some other fake news made to make us laugh. But then I find out it’s true. W and Palin should be put in one of those group homes for the mentally disabled.
Mark Baland | Nov 15, 2009 | Reply
I also heard that Pol Pot wanted to start a civil liberties think tank. The Republocrat Party is getting pretty desperate, but, unfortunately there will be conservatives and libertarians who will take the bait, hook, line, and sinker.
Bryan Morton | Nov 15, 2009 | Reply
Politics can be real funny—in a sad way.
Johanne | Nov 16, 2009 | Reply
Not to mention that, before becoming president, he made his fortune as a “businessman” through a taxpayer-subsidized stadium boondoggle when he was “owner” of the Texas Rangers. To people like George Bush, this is the “free market”–they live for free at everybody else’s expense.
Joe | Nov 16, 2009 | Reply
These things have a point. Just like getting Greenspan to come out and say what a mistake his belief in the free market was. These aren’t accidents, they do it for a reason.
Joshua Katz | Nov 16, 2009 | Reply
Joshua Katz:
“These things have a point. Just like getting Greenspan to come out and say what a mistake his belief in the free market was. These aren’t accidents, they do it for a reason.”
True. Both sides benefit from maintaining the illusion of a free market–it deflects people’s attention from the fact that they’re busy rigging the game in favor of their campaign donors and other interest groups.
Joe | Nov 17, 2009 | Reply
There’s got to be a part of the Bible that speaks to hypocrisy. Then again, maybe Bush isn’t so much a hypocrite as he is basically without a clue when it comes to Freedom, the Constitution and the proper limits of government.
Rick Vee | Nov 17, 2009 | Reply
George Bush....think tank. That’s an oxymoron. All this from the same man who signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which led to FERC directing the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) to write over 200 new regulatory standards for the electric power industry, with obscene penalties for non-compliance. Now he is criticizing big government??
Joseph Dzwonczyk | Nov 18, 2009 | Reply
Rick Vee – re: biblical reference to hypocrisy, please see Matthew 23
Phillip Osborn | Nov 23, 2009 | Reply