Remember under George Bush when The GOPee had control of both legislative houses plus the white house? Yep another lack luster time of majority for the GOPee. Instead of working on reversing bad economics that led up to the housing finance crisis, they gave us Medicare D. So yeah, the GOP in a roundabout way can share the blame.
I’d like to remind you that When the democrats got their gubby mits back on the house and senate in 06 the unemployment rate was 4.6%..within two years of Democrat control it was over 10%.
The Democrats tanked the economy on purpose.
“Instead of working on reversing bad economics that led up to the housing finance crisis, they gave us Medicare D. So yeah, the GOP in a roundabout way can share the blame.”
Very true. When the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress under Bush, they went on a spending spree while Bush kept his veto pen in his pocket. Bush inherited a balanced budget from Clinton and the GOP Congress. When Bush’s term began there were projections the national debt would be paid off by the end of the decade. Instead, at the end of his two terms ended the national debt had doubled.
Not only did we get Medicare D, the bloated Department of Homeland Security, we got the Patriot Act, huge federal intervention in education with massive increases in spending and “No Child Left Behind”. We got new trade bills resulting in the export of American jobs and Congressional earmarks building $200 million bridges to isolated towns in Alaska. We got lax border enforcement. We got silence from the bully pulpit when it came to the President standing up for conservative principles and even his own moderate to liberal policies. We got Ben Bernanke appointed to the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Timothy Geithner appointed to head the New York Federal Reserve, and the Chairman of Goldman Sachs Henry Paulson appointed to head the Department of the Treasury. All in place to manage the financial crisis by saving the Wall Street Banks at the expense of the taxpayer. All of this on Bush’s watch.
As to the financial crisis, there was a housing bubble but the trigger for the meltdown in the fall of 2008 was a run on the banking system, specifically money market funds. In the weeks after the meltdown one Congressman did publicly state the fact a run on money market funds triggered the collapse. He was shut up. The mystery is what caused the run? Was it Soros and a few billionaires? Was it China and Russia acting in concert? Why didn’t the Bush administration tell us? Bernanke, Paulson, Geithner and others, including the President, had to know. Who were the specific speculators, institutions, and possibly foreign governments conspiring to bring down the banking system and the US economy in September 2008? Neither political party has dared to publicize who was behind the $500 billion run on the banking system in a single day which caused the Federal Reserve to dump trillions of dollars into the banking system in order to keep it from collapsing. Why?
Note that Bush turned over administration of the financial system to the Wall Street banking cartel through his appointments to Treasure and the Federal Reserve, and his administration bailed out the Wall Street Banks in September of 2008. Yet in the 2008 election campaign Goldman Sachs and the other big banks poured their money into the Democrat campaign coffers. Why?
Finally, Obama has shown the President can affect policy by ignoring laws he doesn’t want to enforce and using executive orders to implement policy via the bureaucracy. Republican’s say Bush couldn’t do anything his last two years in office because the Democrats controlled Congress. Well Obama has accomplished his objectives the past six years with Republicans controlling the House. Since the Republicans took control of the Senate this year nothing has changed. Obama is getting everything he wants. It can be done if the President doesn’t back down.
Bush may have warned about Fannie and Freddie early in his first term but what did he do about it. If he really believed the economic system was in danger, why didn’t he use the bully pulpit to warn the country and demand a fix? Why didn’t he use his executive and regulatory authority to reign them in. Why didn’t he use the Department of Justice to charge bad actors with crimes? Why didn’t he defund Fannie and Freddie in his budget requests? Why didn’t he have a GOP Congressman or Senator actually introduce legislation to reign in Fannie and Freddie? Why didn’t he use the SEC to force more disclosure regarding the risk in the sub prime loan packages being hawked by Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citibank, Bank of America and others? Why didn’t he use anti-trust laws to break up the “too big to fail” banks? Talk is cheap, actions take effort and the real truth is Bush did not put any effort into reigning in Fannie and Freddie, the bundling of subprime loans, the consolidation of the banking industry into a few corrupt mega banks, or the excessive speculation in the stock and bond markets.
Could the truth be the Wall Street bankers funding the GOP liked making money on government insured sub prime loans? Could it be they were making millions packaging the Fannie and Freddie sub prime loans into financial instruments and selling them around the world? Don’t listen to a few words in a single long speech warning about Fannie and Freddie. Watch behavior and follow the money. The truth is those who fund the GOP were earning big money speculating with sub prime mortgage packaging. Bush did nothing because the people funding his campaigns and the RNC did not want the punch bowl taken away.
The American people deserve to know who caused the run on the money market funds in 2008. Why are both political parties covering up this truth?
“Remember under George Bush when The GOPee had control of both legislative houses plus the white house?”
Good point. I don’t remember the REPUBLICANS or Bush pushing anything to undo what was to cause the housing crash...such as ending what wasn’t even law. From the article: “In 1994, Bill Clinton PROPOSED increasing home ownership through a “partnership” between government and the private sector”
Nope, instead the Republicans and Bush were PERFECTLY HAPPY to watch the economy artificially “grow”, knowing full well it couldn’t be sustained, given that trillions of dollars were being lent to people that had absolutely NO WAY to pay it back. But Bush just sat there while time bomb ticked, and ticked, and ticked. Maybe Cruz wouldn’t have that happen, maybe a Democrat wouldn’t have let that happen, but Bush was president and DID NOT LIFT A FINGER to try to stop it.
So Trump is right on that - and I’m against Open Borders, so he gets my vote.
Sorry, but keep trying.
Yes, the GOP should share some of the blame, but nowhere near the degree that falls on the Dims. Jimmy Carter and a Dim Congress created the disastrous CRA, which, under BJ Clinton, went on steroids, and that is what tanked the economy. But, you’re right: Bush and Medicare D did not help.
I am beginning to be totally convinced that the worst part about Medicare part D is NOT the huge cost but that the money is mainly wasted buying prescription drugs that, in reality, do more HARM than good.