Some people get angry when the President refers to 9/11. Criesthat, "Bush is simply using 9/11 as a campaign ploy," echo fromthose that dislike him. Let's take a close look at the significanceof Bush's actions since 9/11.
Economy:
Few people talk about the disastrous impact 9/11 had onAmerica's job market. However, its impacts are important whenjudging President Bush's performance. In the year following 9/11 welost 1.65 million jobs. The year before we had already lost 1.35million jobs, while experiencing the effects of the Clintonrecession. How has President Bush done in lowering the unemploymentrate? We are actually back to the lowest unemployment rate sinceSeptember of 2001, at 5.4%. Have we still lost jobs since Bush tookoffice? Yes, but Bush inherited a recession, has fully recoveredsince 9/11, and the economy is strong. When our nation's economy isstrong, the unemployment rate tends to go down. This is good sinceour GDP has increased at record levels over the last year, thanksto Bush's tax relief. Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans haspointed out that, "the unemployment rate is lower than the averagerates of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. We're the world's fastestgrowing major, industrialized economy. Over the last four yearsproductivity posted the fastest rate of growth in 50 years.Take-home pay increased by 3.5 percent last year--faster than theaverages of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s." Put simply, our economicperformance is looking good.
War on Terror:
Bush's policies have resulted in the death or capture of many ofthe Al Qaeda operatives responsible for 9/11. Also a new JusticeDepartment report shows that, "more than 100 suspected terroristplots have been disrupted since September 11... hundreds ofsuspected terrorists have been identified and tracked throughoutthe United States; the nation's human sources of intelligence havedoubled since September 11; counterterrorism investigations alsohave doubled; and more than 18,000 subpoenas and search warrantshave been issued." While this is great news for the war on terror,it doesn't stop there. "The Justice Department and TreasuryDepartment, along with the FBI, have dismantled 62 designatedterrorist organizations... seized more than $125 million in assets,frozen more than 600 bank accounts... and conducted 70investigations into terrorist financing with 23 convictions orguilty pleas." Finally, "the department also has disrupted ninemajor alien smuggling networks and stopped hundreds of terroristsand criminals at the U.S. border... including 11 suspectedterrorists with at least one known member of al Qaeda." Bush hasaccomplished a great deal in the war on terror. I haven't evenmentioned that Bush's actions in Iraq inspired Syria, a terroristsupporting nation, to volunteer to dismantle their WMD programs andto cooperate with the United States. We are also fighting peoplefrom Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Iraq, which havecrossed from Syria's border to support the insurgency. The war onterror is doing quite well.
On September 11th, 2001 President Bush provided this countrywith the kind of solid leadership and support it needed to dealwith its greatest attack. Since then he has restored our economyand job-market, created an agency for Homeland Security,successfully thwarted terrorist attacks and weakened terroristorganizations, and continues to serve this country in a host ofother domestic and social related areas. Nothing could be moreimportant to discuss in this presidential election.
Write to Brett at
bamock@bsu.edu
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