Hat-tip to SaraBeth for pointing out the obvious and spurring this blurb.

Here's one legacy that George W. Bush can't be too proud of: too little, too late for the average minimum wage worker.

The top line shows the percentage of the minimum wage that gasoline prices are eating into -- namely, it's an increasing percentage of a hourly worker's take-home pay, leaving the worker with less than before.

Note that while the federal minimum wage increases in July, I've held gas prices stagnant at $4.03/gallon -- something unlikely to prove true. Also, the federal minimum wage increases again in July of 2009 -- to $7.25 -- which reduces the percentage from 61.66 to 55.71 percent. The numbers still aren't stellar: they put the worker back to the equivalent of the second quarter of 2007, when the faltering economy was already starting to bite further into average budgets across both food and fuel prices.

This is the legacy of eight years of Republican manglement management of our federal government.

Posted earlier at 10:12:29 EST. Bumped.

The "Presidency" of George W. Bush is grinding to an excruciating, long-awaited and long-overdue halt; with luck and perserverence, we'll still find a way to get impeachment and accountability back on the table to ensure that none of the blaggards, thieves and liars who voluminously infest the framework around this "Administration" can ever return to government. The Ford, Bush I and even Clinton Administrations pardoned previous incarnations of the same under the misbegotten claim of "moving forward" -- we now face the same individuals, working together in a concentrated concoction of the nefarious and ne'er-do-well, as a result.

But this isn't even about them. It's much more focused.

This is about the first hints that George W. Bush's most important legacy -- the one we may actually thank him for, even if he is allowed to escape the Justice he's so actively thwarted and manipulated. This is about how George W. Bush may have saved the nation, simply by damaging it so badly that he's virtually guaranteed there will never be another Bush Presidency.

promoted - cho

Or, how to be delusional about ones legacy.

George Bush last week gave interviews to various Middle East news outlets in preparation for his visit this week to the Middle East. In answering the questions its clear that George W. Bush is living in a parallel universe of his own construction.

Israel's Channel 2 News