Critics say Bush's tax cuts combined with increased spending to fight two wars, among other costs, helped plunge the nation into a deep economic crisis. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/14/us-usa-campaign-economy-bush-idUSBRE85D0XI20120614 WASHINGTON | Thu Jun 14, 2012 10:36am EDT (Reuters) - About two-thirds of Americans believe Republican former U.S. President George W. Bush is responsible for the nation's struggling economy, with a smaller percentage blaming Democratic President Barack Obama, a Gallup poll showed on Thursday. About 68 percent of the more than 1,000 adults surveyed nationwide said Bush, who left office in January 2009, deserves a "moderate amount" or a "great deal" of the blame for the U.S. economic woes compared to 52 percent who pointed to his successor Obama, the poll found. The results were released as Obama prepared to give a major economic speech later on Thursday as part of his campaign to win re-election on November 6. He is seeking to convince voters that his economic remedies are working and that his Republican rival Mitt Romney's policies would trigger an economic crisis. Poll respondents who identified themselves as Republicans were split, with 49 percent saying Bush deserved a moderate amount or great deal of the blame while 51 percent said Bush deserved not much of the blame or none at all. They expressed even more blame for Obama, however, with 83 percent holding him largely responsible for the state of the economy, the poll found. Among Democrats, 90 percent blamed Bush for the weak economy and only 19 percent said Obama should carry much of the blame, according to the poll, conducted by telephone June 7 to 10. "Republicans, in short, are significantly more willing to blame their most recent Republican president than are Democrats willing to blame Obama," Gallup said. Independent voters, who could play a critical role in the November election, were more likely to blame Bush (67 percent) than Obama (51 percent). Fewer independents blamed Obama than Gallup's last results in September, when 60 percent pointed to him, the poll found. Many Americans are still struggling to recover financially from the nation's deepest recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and Obama is trying to regroup after recent setbacks, including an anemic May jobs report. "Americans continue to place more blame for the nation's economic problems on George W. Bush than on Barack Obama, even though Bush left office more than three years ago," Gallup said. "... This suggests that Obama's argument that he is on the right track and needs more time to turn the economy around could fall on receptive ears, particularly those of independents." Bush, who served two four-year terms as president, has been unable to shake the blame since Gallup began tracking the economic finger-pointing in 2009, and has seen about 70 percent of those polled holding him responsible since mid-2010. Critics say Bush's tax cuts combined with increased spending to fight two wars, among other costs, helped plunge the nation into a deep economic crisis. The poll had a maximum margin of sampling error of plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.
And yet Obama's 2 top economic advisers combined with Clinton have all said that we should renew them, before they were taken to the woodshed, and Romer said that ending the taxcuts would cause a significant contraction in the economy. And most damning of all Obama chose to renew them, thereby making them "the Obama tax cuts"
I raised this key point with resident Obama Boy, AK, and he disappeared. Kinda like how the Patriot Act is a GOP thingy too.
We must go back a whole lot further than the Bush administration when laying the blame, but for the sake of argument let's make it a Bush vs. Obama deal. There is no doubt that the economy went straight to hell under the Bush administration. That is no longer a relevant point. The relevant questions are, what's been done over the last 3 1/2 years to fix things? Who has been the president during these years? Who said he was going to change things, fix things? Did the man do the job he said he was going to do? That man being Obama. Yes, Bush was a screw up. Bush ain't the current president, and hasn't been for quite some time. Anyone voting for Obama just because Bush was a disappointment is an idiot.
Ok, how do you want to measure that? Unemployment then and now? Rate of job loss then and now? GDP then and now? Or any of those, where we were then and where you think we should be now?
Which would be a better arguments/questions for Obama supporters to make, rather than blaming Bush, which was my point.
In the first paragraph I quoted, the percentage adds up to 120%. Does that mean 20% of people blame both Obama and Bush? If so, I'm with them. The second paragraph is pretty biased. Why even place blame on someone? Fix the damn problems! Not next term, not next year, not next week, but now! Oh, they can't be fixed that soon? How about we get a president who can figure out how to fix what's wrong sooner then. In the last paragraph, why is it being blatantly ignored that Obama CONTINUED and EXPANDED the wars that the USA are fighting??
Well, many of us want Obama to do more. Another perspective, just today: "The Dead Hand of George W Bush By Matthew Yglesias | Posted Thursday, June 14, 2012, at 8:34 AM ET "George W Bush was a bad president and I hate to defend him, but the fact that when asked 68 percent of the American public say he bears responsibility for the bad economy (compared to 52 percent for Barack Obama) is a bit puzzling to me. "Blaming Obama is, I think, simplistic. The 111th Congress didn't do as much fiscal stimulus as he wanted. The 112th Congress has done basically nothing that he wanted. The GOP blocked confirmation of Obama's appointee to the Federal Housing Finance Administration, undermining his ability to direct national housing policy. They stymied appointments to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Guys like the heads of the Minneapolis, Dallas, and Richmond Federal Reserve banks have influenced policy in a way that was beyond Obama's control. Which is just to say that in terms of people who've been directing American public policy since 2009 there's plenty of blame to go around and no reason to just pin it all on Obama. "But not only did Bush face many of the same constraints on his authority (particularly in 2007-2008) but he hasn't been in office in years. "You can look at the whole great downturn of 2008 and 2009 and pin that on the guys who'd been running the show when it started. But it just doesn't make sense to think that policy initiatives undertaken while Bush was president are responsible for the sluggish pace of the recovery. The invasion of Iraq didn't cause inadequate aggregate demand in 2011. Nor did the wastefullness of the Bush farm and energy bills, the irresponsibility of his tax policies, or anything else that can be laid at his feet. Our problems today are primarily the fault of weak aggregate demand in 2010, 2011, and the beginning of 2012 and the blame for that lies with the people who've been running the Fed, the congress, and the executive branch."
Critics say Bush's tax cuts combined with increased spending to fight two wars, among other costs, helped plunge the nation into a deep economic crisis. ------------------------------- Bush tax cuts? Two wars? Did not precipitate the need for Tarp and bank bailouts. Where does the failure of GM fit in the economic crisis, of two wars and tax cuts. Bush tax cuts and two wars caused Lehman to file bk? What economic crisis are we talking about here? Bush tax cuts and two wars made the price of my house go down. Dang wars, I can't get a Credit card. I can't remember reading one book on the finacial crisis which listed 2 wars as the problem. Why is there Dodd Frank if war is the problem? How fucking stupid.