By Frank Beckmann Now that the Democrats and Republicans have concluded their national conventions, the race is on to the Nov. 6 general election. With the talking done, voters can now concentrate on the differences in the parties and decide if their lives are really better than they were when President Barack Obama took office in January of 2009. The Democrats have made clear that they're still running against George W. Bush, blaming him for the nation's recession â without any logical explanation â while taking credit for two major accomplishments that began under the former president. It was Bush who began the bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler, later explaining that he did not want to leave his successor with "21 percent unemployment." Vice President Joe Biden's bumper sticker mantra of "Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive" fails to account for Bush's role in originally extending the lifeline to the two auto companies. Further, while the killing of Osama bin Laden came on Obama's watch, it was years of military intelligence gathering under Bush which allowed Navy SEAL Team 6 to finally corner and take out the world's most wanted killer. Again, Bush gets no thanks for his leadership as commander-in-chief, even as Obama gets the appropriate credit for approving the final mission. Omitting the Bush contributions is one thing, but Dems have gone even further in blaming him and the free market system for the recession and current $16 trillion national debt. If a finger is pointed at Bush, then several must be directed at the Democrats who controlled Congress when the recession started in 2007. After all, it was Democrats who promoted subprime mortgage loans through the Community Reinvestment Act and lawsuits that forced banks to lend money to borrowers who had no hope of repaying their loans. In fact, it was Obama himself who helped oversee a lawsuit on behalf of 186 Chicagoans in 1995, forcing Citibank to ignore its own mortgage guidelines in order to secure mortgages for poor citizens. Records produced by The Daily Caller revealed that only 19 of those plaintiffs still own their homes and at least 46 have since filed for bankruptcy, some multiple times. That's hardly the free market or predatory lenders causing the problem, as Obama and his backers have continually claimed. It was Bush who tried to stop those practices, but he was rebuffed by Democrats Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank who later oversaw restrictive legislation that has left the loan market suppressed to this day. Bush will continue to receive the bashing by Democrats right through November, but Democrats have a very weak case against him. They can claim his lower tax rates, enacted in 2001, are responsible for a lack of revenue to pay for their pet entitlement spending programs. But they can't explain why they've run up the national debt to more than $16 trillion while extending those tax rates themselves twice under Obama's signature as president. Democrats might also try explaining why they want to extend the rates for those making less than $250,000 a year since they spent the last two election cycles claiming that Bush only gave tax cuts to the wealthy. Similarly, Bush can't be blamed for Obama's budget-busting $800 billion stimulus package that his administration said would have unemployment under 6 percent by now instead of the 8.3 percent we're experiencing. And Bush can't be blamed for higher food prices or the doubling of gasoline prices since Obama became the president. Similarly, Bush can't be blamed for eliminating tens of thousands of jobs at the nation's car dealerships that were forced to close by Obama's auto team, nor is it his fault that 20,000 nonunion Delphi retirees had their pensions stripped by actions of the Obama administration. Is life better for Americans now than when Obama took office in 2009? It might be if you're part of his political base from labor unions, to illegal immigrants, to the record number of people receiving food stamps, to campaign contributors who have received subsidies to prop up their businesses. But for everyone else, Obama will have to explain why his policies, not Bush's, have failed to spur a resumption of significant economic growth. Frank Beckmann is host of âThe Frank Beckmann Showâ on WJR-AM (760). http://www.detroitnews.com/article/...8/opinion01/It-wasn-t-Bush-who-tanked-economy
"If borrowing and spending and regulating and taxing was the secret to economic success, we would be entering a golden age along with Greece," Ryan said in a live interview from Los Angeles. "It's not, it doesn't work. We need sound money, low tax rates, fiscal discipline, regulatory certainty and we need to stop this notion of a government-driven economy."
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." - Thomas Jefferson
The article references a few solid points, but it won't sell. The dye is cast on the Bush years. People, especially dems, won't be interested in digging that deep to look at Bush in a different way. GW get's blamed for many things, much of it deserved. I've been tough on him myself. However, no one man, one administration, nor one party can be held totally responsible for this mess we're in. It was years, decades in the making, and neither party has clean hands.
Facts are facts. Not everyone shares your view of Bush. The only thing I fault him for is not defending his record against the stupid big mouth Pelosi types that spewed lie after lie that many, apparently including you, swallowed hook line and sinker over his last two years.
Dictator Obama. You can almost see it in his eyes as he plans another end run around Congress with an illegal executive order creating law. He sounds a lot like Hugo Chavez.
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PY8unkujA80?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>