With a new election coming up, and another chance for Americans to either turn America toward recovery or further into the dung heap, I started thinking back to that wonderful cluster$$$$ election of 2000. So here is my take on "What if Gore Had Won?":
- No 9/11. Gore would have implemented the Hart-Rudman commision reccommendations to create a "Homeland Security Taskforce" (more homeland security, less ducttape and alert colorcodes), and would have implemented a proccess better coordination between law enforcement agencies. By the time the August PDB had come around, several, if not many of the perpetrators would have been apprehended, causing the terrorist plan to fall apart. Furthermore, evidence linking the plan to Bin Laden may have allowed the US to use covert means to catch Bin Laden in the process.
So no 9/11, no Afganistan invasion, no Iraq invasion, Bin Laden captured and imprisoned, no Guantanamo Bay prison, no Abu Ghraib scandal, no loss of habeas corpus, no Patiot Act, no one booing the Dixie Chicks for making fun of Dubya.
- No (Major) Enron debacle. The Gore white house would not have had the ties to Ken Lay,et.al. that Bush had, and would have never allowed the California energy crisis to occur. Restrictions on Enron abuses of energy trading may have caused Enron to fail anyway, but at a much lesser cost to the US and especially California's economy.
So no major Enron blowout (only minor), Worldcom, et.al. collapse results in stricter regulation of accounting/business practices, Arthur Andersen is shaken up but remains intact, no rolling blackouts in California, Davis stays Governor or retires at the end of his last term and is replaced by Cruz Bustamante, no Arnold Terminator Gov., no massive hole in California budget.
- The first 1999 tech bubble starts the ball rolling on how to jump start the economy with stimulus packages targeted toward infrastructure and environmental resource solutions. These initiatives cause a return of annual national debt for a couple of years, but the influx of new revenue created by the government investment allowes the government revenue to post annual surpluses again in 2-3 years. Positive economy and job creation allow Gore to be elected a 2nd time. By 2008, the national debt had been reduced from ~6 trillion in 1999 to ~4 trillion - the level it was in 1992.
So, no economy crash, no 10 trillion debt, more jobs, more income for middle America......
Feeling depressed yet?
