Posted on 05/31/2012 5:11:54 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
The latest digression in the presidential campaign between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama is a fresh argument about government spending that took place in 2008 and 2009. Should it count as Obama's spending? Or that of his predecessor, George W. Bush? The answer, apparently, will determine whether Obama is an "old-school liberal" addicted to spending, as Romney insists, or a more thrifty leader carefully husbanding taxpayer dollars.
I can't prove it, but my contention is that any president, of any party, would have approved the bank and housing-agency bailouts and other stimulus measures that Bush approved, and even Obama's $800 billion stimulus plan, which passed in 2009. It's easy to forget, but the economy was on the verge of free-falling into a depression back then, and there was intense pressure on the government to prevent that. Politicians get elected to do what the voters want, and voters wanted somebody to stop the bleeding and save the economy.
I'd go as far as to say that any president would have approved the 2009 auto bailouts, too.
In my view, Obama's true spending habits should be judged from the middle of 2009 onward. That would obviously include his signature healthcare-reform law, a series of temporary tax cuts and subsidies for the unemployed, plus a bunch of other stimulus measures that Obama proposed but Congress denied. Obama is clearly a man who prefers government solutions to many problems, but so did a lot of others during the financial crisis, when there didn't appear to be any other solutions. Voters shouldn't punish the president for helping save the economy when it needed saving.
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...
Cloward Piven.
Collapse the system so it can be replaced with a better one.
Never let a crisis go to waste.
This the driving ideology of the dimrat party since they took over the house and senate. Once they got one of their own in the White House it was a done deal.
We will suffer because of it. Part of the plan.
Never forget who brought us this national nightmare, the dimrat party and their media. May they all rot in hell.
I think Rick Newman is confused. I can’t say for certain what some other hypothetical president may have done but one thing is certain, everything the Obummer administration has done has had negative results for this country and much of the rest of the world and this is deliberate. The puppet masters who pull the strings on this farce of a government know full well what they are doing and what they are doing is intentionally creating a depression to make the thirties look like a Sunday afternoon picnic by a babbling mountain stream.
Your comparison is excellent. I have added a couple of “extras” that were common out here in Californicator Land:
The US is spending $1.40 for every $1 income.
Just like the family in 2008 riding a wave of false prosperity funded by credit cards and helocs.
Two luxury SUVs on lease and a 4000 sf McMansion with zero equity.
One or two vacation homes posing as rentals with $ losses every year.
Maxed out home equity, seconds and thirds on their McMansions and vacation homes.
Expensive Personal lifestyle trainers showing up several times a week to make the debtors appear to be beautiful and smart.
Expensive family vacations with adult children, grandkids, nephews and nieces on cruises or at McFantasy Parks, again paid temporarily for by borrowed money.
Children, who shouldn’t be in college or private schools costing 5 figures each year for worthless faux education.
Well said, it’s sad to watch.
I fear for my grandchildren’s future....
Presidents don't spend. They don't write or create legislation that makes budgets and spending Bills. They can "propose" such but its Congress that deals with Spending. The Democrat controlled Congress went on a Spending Spree in 2009 1nd 2010. Obama Gleefully signed the bills into law.
Now the MSM is trying to deflect the fact that it was the Democrats who made this current spending mess. (not to be confused with the previous spending mess the Republican controlled congress made and President Bush Gleefully signed into law.)
Well...they had to pay someone to make and put up the signs, you know... :-) (Of course after that they had no further value.)
The cost of those signs could have funded several more large infrastructure improvements...but of course that is not ultimately what the stimulus was all about.
Obama and Biden both.
Why? So they could enrich their cronies..........follow the money.
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