Nothing is better after eight years of Bush

NBC's First Read did a "Then and Now" comparison of ten areas to see how things have fared after eight years of Bush and Cheney. Not good, as you can imagine (especially for Bush and Cheney themselves.)

Try these three for starters:

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
Then: 4.2% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 2001)
Now: 6.7% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 2008)

And:

CONSUMER CONFIDENCE (1985=100)
Then: 115.7 (Conference Board, January 2001)
Now: 38.0, which is an all-time low (Conference Board, December 2008)

And:

U.S. BUDGET
Then: +236.2 billion (2000, Congressional Budget Office)
Now: -$1.2 trillion (projected figure for 2009, Congressional Budget Office)

It's going to take a long, long time to dig out of this hole. And, we better start digging out soon.