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For anyone wondering why Pres. Obama keeps blaming Bush for the state of the U.S. economy, it's...
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Thursday, June 14, 2012, 6:20 PM ETFor anyone wondering why Pres. Obama keeps blaming Bush for the state of the U.S. economy, it's because it's smart politics. More than two-thirds of Americans, including half of Republicans, still blame former Pres. Bush for the country's economic ills, according to a new Gallup poll. The data suggests Obama's argument that he needs more time to fix the economy could fall on receptive ears.
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This news story has 74 comments:
It's bad politics. It makes him look like a looser little kid.
1) There are many solid arguments supporting the notion that the Bush administration shares much of the blame for breaking the economy.
2) There are many solid arguments supporting the notion that the Obama administration isn't doing the right things to fix the economy.
However, such notions are incomplete without some consideration of opposition obstructionism.
The things that the Obama administration has done, like them or not, are very few in comparison to the things they have not been ABLE to do, or even debate, because of the obstructionist climate (mostly in the House & Senate).
Certainly, some will claim this is a good thing, so that the evil muslim socialist foreign-born terrorist-loving Obama can't do any more harm to Real America -- but the reality is that we'll never know for sure, as you can't prove or disprove the effectiveness of policies that were never given a reasonable chance.
It is noteworthy that even conservative pundits are starting to note the problematic nature of this kind of politics:
"Vote Republican: because it's just too dangerous to have them in the opposition." (http://bit.ly/LY3aLC)
Not that the other guys are much better:
http://bit.ly/LY3aLD
False. When did the Democrats have 60 seats on the Senate? :)
...and if the Constitution could be amended, who knows?
One can only dream.
sycophant
As a matter of fact, the Europeans perfected the Basel model of banking, where you could use risk metrics to prove 20 or 30 to 1 leverage was OK. Bush was in charge when it was imported here, the SEC was put in charge of the big banks, who were regulated as CSE's. That meant they used risk metrics to prove 20 or 30 to 1 leverage was OK and reported to the SEC once a month, on the honor system. Disaster followed, quickly enough.
It took Bush 8 years to bring the economy and financial system to its kness, it will take Obama 8 years to fix it.
No, by the time he had messed up by getting the US into two unnecessary and expensive wars in the mideast
======================...
If you were against war in Afghanistan in 2001, you were part of a small minority. This war was approved by huge majority of USA population and population around the world.
It was not unnecessary War in 2001, after Twin Towers
It was not unnecessary War in 2008, when Obama run for office
This War became 'unnecessary', after Obama completely failed on economy, and folks like you became more dependable on Kool Aid to have reality altered
Iraq War was unnecessary
For that Bush got approval somewhere around 30%
IMPO.
Obama's current approval is far too much expencive
As noted elsewhere, the banks have been recapitalized, and they are lending. The economy has been creating new jobs faster than people are being laid off. GDP has been growing, rather than shrinking.
The housing bubble pulled about ten years worth of demand forward. The housing industry won't achieve full recovery until the excess supply has been absorbed and some of the obsolescent stock removed. Something like that takes time. Creating a new bubble is not a solution.
Anyway, the economy is much improved, and there are good reasons to expect that recovery will be slow, for the simple fact that demand was pulled forward, both for houses and for cars.
As Shaun said, his constant references to Bush simply make him look like a loser punk beating on a kid that isn't in a position to fight back. It also shows he lacks the emotional maturity to take responsibility for his first term.
The Republican party's primary political strategy is to prevent Obama from fixing the economy. They don't care if they wreck the country, as long as they can get back into power.
I notice Jeb Bush has been doing some reasonable, non-ideological interviews lately, there is some possibility that the Republicans will finally wake up and stop trying to rule the country by cobbling together a coalition of fringe groups.
Everybody's subject to evaluation and recall by the voters. My point is simply that it's juvenile to think that after four years one can blame, for one's current performance, a President, who hasn't been in office for four years. Are we to assume that Carter would have gotten elected in 1980, if he'd just been clever enough to blame Ford/Nixon?
And, it's almost impossible for Obama to promote a forward-thinking campaign because he would either have to make a radical u-turn on his very socialist views, alienating his base, or he'd have to portray himself, as he really is, which is a guaranteed losing proposition at this juncture. Unless there's some kind of dramatic turn in economic affairs between now and November, Mr.Obama is going to discover just how limited the patience of American voters is, especially when one tries only to focus backward, rather than forward.
Or do you mean the obstructionist Republicans holding things up in the alternate universe you and Terry330 live in?
That was a repeat of the huge jolt to a stumbling economy given when the Republicans defied their own leaders to block the first effort to pass TARP.
That group is hooked on koolaid and can't understand why the rest of us don't want to drink it.
It's a pity they did away with the party lever, it made voting much easier.
I've detailed the harm they did in preventing the passage of TARP in a timely manner, as well as destroying confidence in the debate about the debt ceiling. There were compromises available, they wouldn't compromise. Their attitude is "my way or no way." It's despicable.
This is the same style adopted by Newt Gingrich, when he championed the idea the the majoriyt of the majority rules. In reality, it meant that a minority of the population imposed their will on the country, doing untold harm. Thank God Newt Gingrich has been discredited, he's a venal hypocrite and a phony intellectual.
This is the same style that prevailed when Karl Rove operated as Bush's brain. It was worse than Donovan's brain. Rove is out of the picture too, thank God yet once more.
I'm not related to Terry330 and don't live in the same universe. I'm a real person, operating under my own name, and expressing my opinions in ways that are irritating to right wing ideologues.
I remember very well where this country was at the end of the Bush administration. Banks collapsing, jobs evaporating, the stock market in a panic, etc.
Now, banks have been recapitalized and are lending. Jobs are being created, except in the government sector, where they are disappearing. Republicans should cheer, government is getting smaller. Too bad it's teachers being cut.
The stock market has recovered to levels similar to what it was at before the crisis. And the wealthy are better off than ever before, while the middle class are nursing a 40% reduction in net worth. If Obama is a socialist, he's not executing very effectively in even minimally reducing income and wealth inequality.
Obama still subscribes to the notion that if only we coddle Wall Street long enough, they will finally create wealth and trickle it down. In truth, they destory wealth, and vacuum it up.
If Obama really wants to get elected he should run on a Populist platform: rule of the people, by the people, and for the people. The economy and financial system to meet the needs of We the People, rather than the needs of the 1%.
Tom, fess up. You're Terry's left breast. The one that goes in and pulls the party lever and still ends up exhausted from all the "thought" that goes into the act.
P.s. I'm beginning to think your posts are automatically generated, the words just get reordered a bit from post to post. Take out the filler and you end up with: Bush, Rove, Newt. Bush, Rove, Newt. Bush, Rove, Newt. Bush, Rove, Newt. ...
From there, he moved along to Afghanistan, another unnecessary war.
Obama sent in a few SEALS, in two helicoptors, and took care of the Osama Bin Laden issue. Bush couldn't do it, he was too busy forcing intelligence to tell him what he wanted to hear. Eventually they found a crazy Arab who would say what they needed, and they passed it along, and the rest is history.
You talk about creating a fiscal disaster - two needless wars, and inordinately expensive Medicare drug benefit, and tax reductions for the rich. It was a toxic recipe for disaster, and we got a disaster.
So the Republicans would like to solve our current difficulties by refusing to raise taxes to pay for the wars they created and the excessive benefits they used to buy off voters. Lot's of luck with that.
Tom, how is Afghanistan an "unnecessary war" under Bush, but a necessary war under Obama? Obama not only escalated the war in Afghanistan, but he's expanded it into Pakistan and the US-Pakistani relationship is deteriorating rapidly as a result. If Bush were doing this, particularly the drone attacks that are killing civilians, you (and the liberal lamestream media) would be running around screaming with your hair on fire. But with Obama not a peep.
The same with healthcare. The Obamacare handout for all is "good," but Bush's Medicare drug benefit for the elderly is "bad".
It's a sign of your intellectual and emotional immaturity that a particular policy is "good" when promoted by Obama, but "bad" when promoted by Bush (or Republicans).
Hang on. If Obama is the smartest person to ever walk the face of the planet and on the surface of the water, how is it he isn't he can't even outsmart "pea brained" Tea Partier's? If he can't even outsmart pea brained people, what does that say about the size of his brain.
People who achieve success don't need to make excuses, and people who make excuses will never know success.
Its only obvious that the issue is not tax receipts, but rather current deficit spending that is burying us and a total refusal by Obama and the Pelosi nutjobs to veer from that course.
How does it feel to be a liar?
GM should have been allowed to go under so that a more productive company could have bought the assets and picked up the pieces, but no. Obama had to be Hugo Chavez.
Obama has done more to retard the standing of this country than even Jimmy Carter!
The economy and financial system will heal if prudential regulation is restored to some minimal level and fraud, abuse and manipulation in the markets reduced to a dull roar.
Bush is not running, but the same idiotic ideology he relied on to misgovern the nation is alive and well, in the Republican party. If you don't pass the test, you can't be a member.
It's no surprise you keep mouthing the word "ideologue" because you're an extreme practitioner of it. The fact is you not only want more of what Bush gave us, and you want Obama to press the accelerator down even more than he has thus far.
Obama is a socialist, just as you are. You can check the vote this November on that.
http://onforb.es/KZfsIf
I've lived in Sweden, where socialist hypocrites like you are a dime-a-dozen.
I love tweaking socialists like you. Been doing it since a lived in Sweden. The more one can keep a guy like you talking the more obvious it becomes that there's no substance behind the rhetoric, and that like all leftists the rules you want to impose "are for thee, not for me."
He doesn't need to say anything else. Four more years to Obama. Very easy decision.
scary as hell I might add!
This man has never owned up to anything of his own doing, especially when its something that goes south!
Bush is out of office and has been for 4 years, at what point does Barry man up and take some responsibility for all the mess he has wrought?
Just look at the Middle East,
Bush sure as heck didn't have anything to do with the so called "Arab Spring",
but what the hell,
lets blame that on good old dubya anyway!
The republic stands in spite of all the union (O.W.S.) class warfare / George Soros funded / communist policies coming out of D.C.!
God help the republic should we have to endure a second act from this clown!
Give us 100 years without another Bush and we have a fighting chance.
http://abcn.ws/LP8Mvq
In 2008, a record for election spending at the time, Obama's election cost roughly $11 per vote in terms of campaign results. McCain's results were more like $7 per vote.
In Wisconsin, Walker and his PACs spent something like $42 per vote, compared with the other guy's roughly $6 per vote. Walker's campaign should be embarrased at how much they had to spend to win by as much as he did.
So it's not so much about the "direction this country is now moving" as it is about the direction this country is now being told to move by monied interests.
Keep trying to rationalize why America just isnt getting Obamanomics, in the mean time a new course has been set
You're doing an excellent job, I'm impressed by your dedication! :)
"Good ol' misinformation tactics" I guess you mean the voters didnt really vote for Walker, or Walker really didnt win, or Dem was intimidated into voting for Walker, or maybe not voting at all.
"few supporting facts" did not Walker win by a wide margin, was that not the Wisconsin electorate speaking
Liberal mind is amazing, an enigma
You don't have a clue what you're even talking about. The ratio was more like 40:1 in cashed raised, against Walker.
But if you claim that Obama bought his election (and most conservatives did and still do), then you must claim that Walker bought his too, and paid a lot more for it.
Also, I think the 2008 Obama campaign's statistics of raising the largest amount of money from small donations in history speaks more to the "will of the people" than the handful of wealthy individuals bankrolling conservative PACs these days.
Regardless, it's a fact of elections, the guy with more money wins in an overwhelming majority of cases. (http://bit.ly/LswDiP)