Bush Legacy Tour

• First National Television  Ad of Campaign to Air Before and After Bush's State of the Union Speech on Monday; View it Here

• "I'm a Bush Republican" Button Challenge Issued to Congressional GOP: View the Challenge Video Here: http://www.americansunitedforchange.org/wearthebuttons

• Bush Legacy Web site launched: http://www.PresidentBushLegacy.com

• Forum Held With Experts to Review Bush Legacy on The Economy, National Security/Foreign Policy, Health Care, Energy/Environment

• Local Citizens Hold Roundtables: "Are we better off now than we were 7 years ago?"
  

Click Here to View the Ad
Ad Script

Washington D.C. – As President Bush prepares to deliver his final State of the Union Address on Monday, and for what his supporters have dubbed his "legacy year" [U.S. News and World Report, January 10, 20008], Americans United for Change, the group best known for leading the fight to defeat the President's effort to privatize Social Security in 2005, launched a national campaign today called the Bush Legacy Project.  The multi-million dollar effort will include paid media, grassroots, and online tactics with the goal of cementing into history what the last 7 years of the Bush/Conservative ideology has wrought on America -- from the looming recession, the endless war in Iraq, shortchanged domestic priorities, millions more Americans uninsured, global warming ignored, stagnant wages, a mortgage crisis, the middle class squeeze, exploding deficit, the pathetic Katrina response, and the list goes on.

"In March of 1987, at the height of the Iran-Contra affair, President Ronald Reagan's job approval rating dropped to its lowest level – 42%," said Brad Woodhouse, President of Americans United for Change.  "But, before he left office in January 1989, Reagan's approval rating had rebounded to 63% - essentially redefining his legacy and allowing his disciples and later followers like George W. Bush to tout the Reagan years as an example of successful conservative governance, when in fact, Reagan left behind the same economic crises and shortchanged domestic priorities we see again today.  We can not allow history to repeat itself – we can not allow Bush to enjoy a Reagan rebound or for conservatives to rewrite history about the Bush Legacy which has been a disaster for America.  This project is less about Bush – and more about the conservative ideology he represents.  It's less about him – and more about sticking a stake in the heart of conservative ideology which is a failed governing philosophy."

The first TV spot, entitled "State of the Union" (Click here to View) of the Bush Legacy Project will air on national television right before and after the President delivers his final State of the Union Address on Monday, January 28th and will continue for the balance of the week.

In addition, a new website – www.PresidentBushLegacy.com – was launched and will feature research, videos, and essays from a broad coalition of organizations documenting President Bush's Legacy, both foreign and domestic, during his tenure.  In key battleground states, Americans United is hosting roundtables with local citizens to reflect upon how the past 7 years of the President's policies have impacted their lives.  Americans United will also unveil plans in the future of a traveling 'Bush Legacy' bus – a rolling museum featuring mementos from  the Bush Presidency from Iraq, Katrina, the economy, the environment, energy and a host of policy areas that have defined Bush's time in office.

Also, this week, Americans United for Change delivered "I'm a Bush Republican" buttons to all of the Republicans in the House and Senate in advance of Bush's Final State of the Union Address on Monday with the message: "your votes helped build his legacy; you should show your support for him by proudly declaring that you're a Bush Republican."  On Monday, as cameras scan the House Chamber during the State of the Union Address, we'll see how many Republicans – those who have voted for Bush's policies on Iraq, the economy, energy and health care – are willing to put their lapels where there votes have been and wear a button with this simple message: "I'm a Bush Republican."  See the accompanying video of the challenge here: http://www.americansunitedforchange.org/wearthebuttons

Yesterday, Americans United hosted a forum with several public policy experts to examine the broad implications of the Bush Presidency and Republican policies in four major issue areas: the economy, national security/foreign policy, health care and energy and the environment.  Experts included Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research; Brian Katulis, Center for American Progress Action Fund; Diane Archer, Health Care for All Project and Campaign for America's Future; Daniel J. Weiss, Center for American Progress Action Fund.  You may view their PowerPoint presentations by clicking here: http://www.americansunitedforchange.org/page/content/npcpresentations/

The goals of the "Bush Legacy Project" are three fold:

• Continually remind American voters why they have lost faith in President Bush and his agenda.

• To tie Bush and his agenda directly to the conservative brand and its followers – including Republican candidates who have and continue to support his unpopular agenda.

• To highlight how Bush's conservative economic, social and foreign policy agenda has failed -- to shift the center of the political debate away from the conservative frame by demonstrating the failure of Bush's policies.

"The Bush Legacy Project, therefore, will be a critical element in the ongoing effort to redefine American political values and to create an enduring progressive majority in America," added Woodhouse.

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With President Bush's last State of the Union just days away, Americans United for Change released the following ad:

Ad script

For seven years, President Bush's allies in Congress helped push forward his failed Conservative agenda. This week, Americans United for Change began delivering "I’m a Bush Republican" buttons to all of the Republicans in the House and Senate today in advance of Bush’s Final State of the Union Address on Monday with the message: "your votes helped build his legacy; you should show your support for him by proudly declaring that you’re a Bush Republican."

On Monday, as cameras scan the House Chamber during the State of the Union Address, we’ll see how many Republicans – those who have voted for Bush’s policies on Iraq, the economy, energy and health care – are willing to put their lapels where there votes have been and wear a button with this simple message: "I’m a Bush Republican."

He "talks the talk," but President Bush has "not walked the walk." When it comes to his moral legacy, President Bush is a failure, according to a recent gathering of Catholic and evangelical social justice leaders. Despite his frequent reference to religion and morality, Bush has "failed to deal with growing poverty at home and abroad, turned a blind eye to torture, ignored climate change, and neglected the human suffering from the war in Iraq."

"We have yet to fully sort out the legacy of an explicitly evangelical president, who sadly has had such a truncated vision of what a moral leadership looks like," said the Rev. David Gushee, president of Evangelicals for Human Rights.

Read more here. 

As President Bush prepares to deliver his final State of the Union Address on Monday, and for what his supporters have dubbed his “legacy year” [U.S. News and World Report, January 10, 20008], Americans United for Change hosted a forum looking at President Bush’s legacy as he enters his final year in office. The forum, entitled “The Bush Legacy: The State of our Union Then and Now,” was held in the Zenger Room at the National Press Club on Thursday, January 24, 2008 at 1:00 P.M.

Featured Presentations:

• Brad Woodhouse: powerpoint | PDF
• Dean Baker: powerpoint | PDF
• Diane Archer: powerpoint | PDF
• Daniel Weiss: powerpoint | PDF

Brad Woodhouse, President, Americans United for Change

Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. He previously worked as a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and an assistant professor at Bucknell University. His blog, Beat the Press, features commentary on economic reporting. He received his Ph.D in economics from the University of Michigan.

Brian Katulis is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. At the Center, his work examines U.S. national security policy in Middle East with a focus on Iraq. He is also a Senior Advisor to the Center’s Middle East Progress project.

Diane Archer, an attorney, is the founder and past president of the Medicare Rights Center. A nationally known expert on Medicare, Ms. Archer is a graduate of the Harvard Law School. Under her 12 years of leadership, the Medicare Rights Center grew from a staff of one to a nationally prominent consumer service organization with client services, education, policy and communications programs.

“President Bush’s approach to health care has failed our country by allowing the insurance industry to drive up costs and ration health care, while keeping the government from guaranteeing health security for all,” said Diane Archer at the forum.

Daniel J. Weiss is a Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress, where he leads the Center's clean energy and climate advocacy campaign. Before coming to CAP, he spent 25 years working with environmental advocacy organizations and political campaigns.

“President Bush’s greatest environmental failures occurred over energy policy,” said Daniel J. Weiss at the forum.  “The former oil man handed over this critical portfolio over to another oil man.  Vice President Dick Cheney convened secret meetings in detail with big oil, coal, and utility executives, and produced a National Energy Policy report in May 2001 that was Administration’s road map for the next seven years.  It focused on drilling oil, burning coal, and fissioning atoms.  It also ignored the world’s gravest environment threat – global warming.”  

The numbers don't lie, and neither do the American people.  George Bush's legacy will be one of failure and frustration: a president who left our country worse off than when he started.  That's what the Bush Legacy Project is all about. 

The Associated Press sums up the Bush Legacy Project in a recent article:

Americans United for Change plans to undertake a yearlong campaign, spending the bulk of the money on advertising, to keep public attention on what the group says are the failures of the Bush administration, including the war in Iraq, the response to Hurricane Katrina, and the current mortgage crisis.

In selling the plan to fundraisers, the group has argued that support for President Reagan was at a low of 42 percent in 1987 but climbed to 63 percent before he left office. "All of a sudden he became a rallying cry for conservatives and their ideology," said Brad Woodhouse, president of the group. "Progressives are still living with that."

And don't miss this part:

Looking to test Bush support within the GOP, Americans United is distributing "I am a Bush Republican" buttons to Republican members of Congress before the State of the Union address. Woodhouse also plans to unveil a bus that will travel the country carrying an exhibit that portrays Bush's tenure in office — mementos from Iraq and flood ravaged New Orleans as well as symbols of the economic downturn.

We've got some exciting plans coming up, so make sure you join us and stay up to date.

As President George W. Bush is fine tuning his last State of the Union address, American adults do not think much of the current state of the country. Four out of five Americans (81%) think that the current state of the country is fair or poor while just 19 percent think it is excellent or good. In fact, just two percent of Americans think the state of the country is excellent. Last year at this time, three in ten (31%) thought the state of the country was excellent or good while 69 percent felt it was fair or poor.

The final year of the Bush Administration is starting off in worse shape than a year which saw record lows in Bush’s approval ratings and near record lows in the direction of the country. While this does not mean that the President’s marks will get any lower, it does set the stage for a year in which President Bush is hoping to ensure his legacy will be left.

With President Bush's 2008 state of the union just around the corner, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel released a chart summarizing "The Country He Inherited, The Country He Leaves Behind" (PDF).  The report analyzes data concerning the economy, American's quality of life and our standing in the world.

Here's what the Washington Post had to say about a difficult choice for Bush's party:

Republicans will surely rebut these numbers with some of their own, but the GOP presidential nominee will face a difficult choice --either marshal some facts to show that the country is actually better off now, or run away from Bush and his low approval ratings by promising change. 

Earlier this week, the Campaign for America's Future released a startling video reality-check of Bush's 2007 State of the Union:

With Recession Looming, Bush’s Allies in Congress Talk Big Game About Need for “Economic Stimulus,” Then Vote to Deny 4 Million Struggling American Families the Best Kind: Healthcare for Their Kids

Washington D.C. – Americans United for Change, a leading partner in the multi-million dollar Campaign to Save Children’s Healthcare, called Bush’s allies in Congress to the carpet today for voting to sustain the President’s veto of healthcare for 4 million more American kids in need. The vote came on the heels of grim forecasts from several leading economists including former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan of a full blown economic recession in 2008 – an ailing economy that has already seen rising unemployment, rising food prices, rising healthcare costs, a mortgage crisis, record high heating oil prices, the largest increase in inflation in 17 years, gas prices hovering around $3 a gallon, a weak dollar, a $167 billion budget deficit, and a $9.2 trillion national debt.

On December 12th, President Bush vetoed the latest version of the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act -- hugely popular, widely bipartisan legislation which was revised in response to the President’s first veto of the bill and included strengthened language to address any and all concerns about undocumented immigrants, adults and children from high-income families benefiting from the program. Sadly, even with these concerns effectively taken off the table, Bush’s allies in Congress still chose today to once again stand with President Bush over the thousands of parents in their district that go to bed every night praying their children don’t get sick or hurt in this struggling economy.

“Bush’s allies in Congress are absolutely shameless,” said Jeremy Funk, of Americans United for Change. “With a full blown recession on the horizon, it’s laughable to hear Republicans talk about the need for ‘economic stimulus’ and then turn around and reject healthcare for 4 million kids from struggling middle class working families. There is no better ‘economic stimulus’ they could have offered for the millions of parents who have to ask themselves every time their kids get sick: “Is it bad enough to see a doctor?””

“There’s no better example of just how out of touch this President and his loyalists in Congress have gotten with the every day struggles of working families in this country,” continued Funk. “Republican after Republican lined up on the floor of Congress today to claim that a family of four making a whopping 3 times the poverty level -- or about $62,000 a year – should easily be able to afford a private insurance plan. That’s absurd, especially in the face of this disastrous Bush economy. Out of excuses, we heard Republicans argue that 95 percent of families under 200 percent of the poverty level should be covered first before worrying about others – which is simply an impossible ask according to the state officials.”

“No, we’re not talking about undocumented immigrants – we’re not talking about adults and children from high-income families. We’re talking about kids whose parents work hard but can’t afford private insurance and are not disadvantaged enough to qualify for Medicaid. These are regular families that may soon have to choose between putting food on the table and paying the bills – forget paying for an expensive private insurance plan. If only these Republicans would have come home and held town halls throughout their districts, they could have heard directly from constituents how high on the hog they’re living at three times the poverty level.”

“It’s question of priorities, and Bush’s allies have theirs all mixed up. They have no problem voting again and again to give President Bush a blank check to police an endless civil in Iraq, yet at the time, they adamantly opposes spending a fraction of that to provide healthcare to 4 million more kids in need. The fact is, for what we spend in just one week in Iraq, 800,000 children could get health insurance for an entire year.”

“We understand healthcare is not a concern for these Republicans’ families – they’ve got the best healthcare plan taxpayer money can buy. Perhaps they would of voted differently today if they looked in the mirror and asked themselves one question: “What if it was my own kid’s healthcare at stake?”