How did Bush ruin the economy?

[joe hx]

It seems that everyone says Pres Obama inherited the economy from Pres Bush. My question is How did Bush ruin the economy?

I want specifics. I don't want "well his policies were stupid".

Looking through the internet, I've only found two answers:

Bush said the economy was going down, so when everyone started spending less to ride the storm, the economy sank.

Bush grew government with things such as the No Child Left Behind Act, Homeland Security, and the Iraq War.

[the_std]

Bush grew government with things such as the No Child Left Behind Act, Homeland Security, and the Iraq War.

Those are pretty substantial arguments, if you think about how much money has gone into them and their relative effectiveness.

[Gravekeeper]

Honestly? The whole 3 trillion price tag on Iraq certainly did a shit load of damage and was Bush's fault of course. Not to mention a significant increase in spending in his initial years in office plus lots of tax cuts. Followed by the massive increase in defense spending after 9/11 and the utterly random invasion of Iraq which cost and is still costing an astounding amount of money.

But under that you had the weakening of regulations on financial institutions under a Republican majority congress as well. So you have a massive increase in government spending coupled with rampant unchecked lending from financial institutions. Leading to many Americans living beyond their means on borrowed dollars. ( Sub prime mortgage ftw? )

The house of cards simply collapsed I suppose.

Sure, not everything was rainbows and unicorn farts when Clinton left office, but he did leave the country with a budget surplus at least.

[AFPheonix]

The earliest thing he managed to do was rather than use that budget surplus to pay down debt, he tossed out tax cuts to his peeps, then proceeded to deficit spend to a point that would have made even Reagan blush.

He also didn't do many favors to the local economies down south when Katrina ripped through by having such an inept emergency response.

[Gravekeeper]

The earliest thing he managed to do was rather than use that budget surplus to pay down debt, he tossed out tax cuts to his peeps, then proceeded to deficit spend to a point that would have made even Reagan blush.

He also didn't do many favors to the local economies down south when Katrina ripped through by having such an inept emergency response.

Yeah, it was a 23% increase in spending in the first term and 1.8 trillion in tax cuts for the homies. Its not precisely wise to increase spending and decrease revenue. -.-

[tropicsgoddess]

A lot of deregulation with businesses (with special regard to the financial industry) as well as a lot of spending on the war in Iraq and such.

[Boozy]

Actually, most of the deregulation responsible happened during the Clinton administration. This whole thing is a bipartisan fuck-up if I've ever seen one.

However: It's the price tag of the Iraq war, funded on credit, that has really put the whole thing over the top. The US is not in good shape to fund the required stimulus packages needed to steer the economy through this recession smoothly. As a result of Bush's assinine spending on playing cowboy in the Middle East, what could have been a 1980's Savings-and-Loan Crisis-style recession is probably going to be a 1990's Japan's "Lost Decade"-style recession. Not good.

[protege]

Sure, not everything was rainbows and unicorn farts when Clinton left office, but he did leave the country with a budget surplus at least.

He did. But it wasn't without a heavy price--quite a few hospitals and health care systems suddenly found themselves in trouble when subsidies were cut.

As to Katrina...from what I understand, those levees and other systems had been neglected for years. It was only a matter of time before all of that failed. But, I do agree that FEMA fucked up.

[AdminAssistant]

*sigh*

FEMA always fucks up. There's been plenty of times that a tornado has wiped a small town off the map where I grew up, with basically no warning, and FEMA always took a week or so to respond. Katrina victims aren't really special in that regard.

[daleduke17]

*sigh*

FEMA always fucks up. There's been plenty of times that a tornado has wiped a small town off the map where I grew up, with basically no warning, and FEMA always took a week or so to respond. Katrina victims aren't really special in that regard.

There's steps you have to go through to get FEMA to respond. The state has to request FEMA assistance before they come. So, tornado hits... local EMA starts handling it... state EMA gets involved if it is more than local resources can handle... <i>then</i> FEMA gets involved once state EMA tells the governor it's more than they can control.

Plus, a lot of Katrina victims did it to themselves. Instead of sitting there crying about "The government isn't helping us", get off your ass and help yourselves. Did Moore, OK or Greensburg, KS bitch and complain about no government helpafter their tornados? Did the residents of Cedar Rapids, Waterloo or Iowa City sit and wait for help during the floods? No. They picked up the slack and helped themselves until the state and federal government could get there.

[BlaqueKatt]

But under that you had the weakening of regulations on financial institutions under a Republican majority congress as well. <snip> Leading to many Americans living beyond their means on borrowed dollars. ( Sub prime mortgage ftw? )

Actually the senate finance comittee was run by Democrats-this was discussed in a previous thread and quite clearly addressed By Fashion Lad

What Bush wanted to do is regulate these businesses that were losing money on these subprime loans. No longer would people with bad credit or no credit be able to get a house. Only people that would be able to pay for their houses would be able to own a home. That makes sense, right? In 2008 alone Bush brought this up 17 times, each time blocked by democrats.

Once again, with the bill that was signed in 1999, if banks did not issue enough subprime mortgages, they were either sued or fined. They had to issue these high-risk loans that got us into this mess.

Bush wanted this requirement of banks to be abolished. This is the requirement that put people into houses they could not afford. Now tell me, how is this bad policy? And tell me again, how is when the democrats blocked this 17 times in 2008 alone, and who knows how many times throughout Bush's entire presidency not their fault?

Every Republican voted for it. There is a "neat" little procedural element in lawmaking called committees. The "committee" that held hearings on the new regulations for Freddie and Fannie was the Senate Banking and Finance Committee. The bill never made it out of committee because EVERY single Democrat voted against it. Yep, the same guys throwing stones at glass houses today, Schumer, Frank and Dodd all voted against it and now say it is completely the Republican's fault.

That's why even though the Republicans held the majority the bill never finalized.

[PepperElf]

Followed by the massive increase in defense spending after 9/11

Um... gee i wonder why.

people were screaming left and right "you aren't doing enough, how could you let this happen!"
(tho ironically they then started screaming "how dare you increase security" etc)


but... yes, specifics would be nice. much nicer than generalizations like "bush sucks, he ruined hte economy!!!!11!!"

[Boozy]

Fine, here's something specific:

The economy was booming throughout most of the 90's, and the vast majority of economists were concerned about it overheating. This would cause a bubble (predictably, in the real estate sector), which in turn would burst (since they always do).

There are several ways to avoid overheating, and the central banks of most successful economies practice these tactics: First, you raise interest rates to slow inflation and encourage saving. Second, you avoid government stimulus or overspending.

Bush did neither of these things. He urged Greenspan to keep interest rates absurdly low following 9/11 (the Fed is supposed to be nominally independent, but in practice the President has a great deal of influence over their decisions). Bush also blew the entire budget surplus on tax cuts. This is unheard of when the economy is pumping along nicely.

Both actions inflated the sub-prime bubble, and more importantly, it was entirely predictable that these actions would eventually blow-up in our faces. Bush had dozens of people telling him this, but he didn't listen.

[BlaqueKatt]

Both actions inflated the sub-prime bubble, and more importantly, it was entirely predictable that these actions would eventually blow-up in our faces. Bush had dozens of people telling him this, but he didn't listen.

re-read the previous thread I linked to and pay attention to fashion lad's posts(he has links to the relevant articles)-by federal law passed in 1999(under Clinton)banks had to offer sub-prime loans or receive huge fines from the federal government-Bush tried to get this under control at least 17 times in 2008-the senate finance committee run exclusively by democrats voted against it every single time-how is the subprime mortgage crisis his fault again?

[Boozy]

First of all, it's incredibly silly to blame either party for the entire mess. I've made it clear that I consider this a bipartisan issue.

Second, I do not respond to articles from sites like NewsBusters whose tag line is "Exposing Liberal Media Bias". Such a tag line only exposes that they are biased.