In early 2004, MoveOn.org held a video competition called “Bush in 30 Seconds.” People submitted ads critical of the President and a group of celebrity judges including Jack Black and Eddie Vedder chose winners.
The winning ad–it won both the Grand Prize and the People’s Choice award–was titled “Child’s Pay.” That’s not a typo, it’s a play on words. The ad depicts children working adult jobs to pay off President Bush’s $1 trillion dollar deficits. That’s right, MoveOn was very concerned about the effect our massive deficits would have on our children back in 2004.
President Bush never had a trillion dollar deficit in a single year, but over the course of his Presidency he did add over $4 trillion to the deficit. But since President Obama took office in 2009 the U.S. has had four straight years of deficits well over $1 trillion. In 2013 the deficit dropped to its lowest level since Obama took office, $680B. However, that is still higher than any single deficit during President Bush’s tenure. Obviously a lot can change in 10 years.
MoveOn ran a similar contest in 2008 focused on candidate Obama. One of the winners of that contest (“Best Positive Message”) was an ad called “Playground Politics” which seemed to predict Obama would put an end to partisan sniping in Washington.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.