Quote:
Originally Posted by spence
The 2009 budget was set by Bush and approved by a Republican House in 2008. Yes, Obama signed it into law but to claim he alone instigated the spending would be false.
By the same reasoning Bush's first year, which you call an abnormality in the higher spending curve, was a budget set by Clinton in 2000. So the "abnormality," by your reasoning, is due to Clinton, not to Bush. And the trajectory of Obama's first year, which you claim was a continuation of the Bush trajectory, actually contained about $200 billion in added spending above the Bush budget due to Obama's stimulus bill, and to it was added the spending that occurred in the last 3 months of the year after the Bush budget expired. So the steeper trajectory of spending was not due to the Bush budget and was not a continuation of it.
The counter-terror infrastructure could have been implemented without engaging in long-term massive scale wars that Obama inherited.
This "inherited" crap must either be applied equally to all presidents or it will just be cover for one president's malfeasance in blaming it on another. Bush, as well as Obama, "inherited" some pretty bad stuff such as Osama Bin Ladin and the burst Dot.com Bubble economy. During his administration, the economy recovered from the dot.com recession and the cost of wars so that it grew at a much higher rate in less time than Obama's "recovery," which still lingers at a much slower pace.
Even considering the rampant fraud and waste of both actions...if this is legitimate spending under Bush I don't see how you can blame Obama for continuing it...
Yes both presidents, as well as most before them all the way back to Hoover, were, in some degree, progressives. And as such they expanded the size of government and increased spending that was not "legitimate." We have to go all the way back to Coolidge to find a fully constitutional, not a progressive, president. And the national debt decreased under Coolidge.
Yes, good to note that the DOW is near an all time high. The recession was a massive correction and far worse than most imagined it would be. What you don't know is how much worse things could have been had we not bailed out the banks and shored up GDP via the Stimulus.
-spence
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It is a wonder that the DOW can go through the roof while the "economy" drags. Isn't it amazing how that sector whose wealth in large doses is accessible to the top percent, many of whom do not "pay their fair share" of taxes, does so well while the bottom 40 to 50% go begging?
And, perhaps the recession was not so much worse than many other recessions, but made to appear so due to a recovery that is slower than other recoveries. It is beginning to look like the depression recovery, both in length of time and in the massive spending and regulation and growth of government which may be the real reason the recession appears to be much worse.
I thought Obama was going to fix all of that. The rich seem to be getting richer, even than before, and the "economy" languishes. Just needs more time.
Actually, the sequester may help by reducing the rate of spending a little bit. That might help the "economy" grow a wee bit faster. And if the less progressive Repubs in Congress maintain their solidarity against increased spending, maybe things will turn around in Obama's time. And he will get credit.