Yes, any GOP President elected in 2008 would have had a problem to face, but I believe the deficit would not have broached $700 billion, and would be back down below $400 billion now, with unemployment down in the 7% range, with GDP growth in the 2-3% range.
The simple reason is that much of our current economic meltdown is because of the actions taken by the President - not doing anything, or doing it to a much smaller scale, would have allowed the economy to recover naturally, instead of the forced-approach the Obama Administration is attempting.
An argument could be made that we might not even have had a collapse in the economy in Fall '08 if a GOP President had been elected.
I'm convinced that a major reason for the crash was the increased regulatory burden the banks saw coming as Obama gained steam. He was promising things like universal healthcare and cap and trade. With a faltering economy this, of course, was enough to cause major investors to sell the market and this produced a domino effect; the major casualty was the housing market because that's where most of the risk-capital was.
When things started to accelerate downward because of the prospect of a socialist taking office, the liberals piled on by blaming Bush. However, I think the real culprit was the significantly higher increase in Gov't spending which was approaching under Obama which, of course, would have to be paid for with higher taxes...big investors pulled out of investments in order to be ready for what was ahead.
I really don't think the '08 crash was inevitable...I believe it really was "Obama's fault".
I agree. Even Bush wouldn't have screwed up the budget this badly, and I've said I thought he was economically disinterested. Obama's crew is aggressively "never letting a crisis go to waste."