.

[bruce MN]

That may be the most stupidly posed thing I've ever seen in my life.  But since it's up,  it'd be nice to have the graphic skills to plot in a marker at mid-July, 2008.

[GreaTOne_65]

He wouldn't want you to see that, ruin his screwy chart.

[schnurrbart]

I stand corrected. It is a bill that went to committee and never came out as of yet. Now tell your dufus buddy that Senator Harry Reid cannot stop a House bill from doing anything until it is passed by the House.

[kraft-t]

You see Bush was driving the rollar coaster over the crest and half way down the hill. We changed pilots and OBama was supposed to reverse the course inspite of the forces of gravity.  Unfortunately, no one could put the brakes on let alone initiate a course reversal.

There is no admission that we averted a major catastrophe. Just the claim that he didn't provide a robust economy because of poor leadership. No mention of the policies that drove us to the brink of disaster.

[dagwud]

Don: "You see Bush was driving the rollar coaster over the crest and half way down the hill. We changed pilots and OBama was supposed to reverse the course inspite of the forces of gravity.  Unfortunately, no one could put the brakes on let alone initiate a course reversal."

I agree with you on that Don and think one could say it was similar situation when Bush first came into office only to a much smaller degree.  That didn't keep some Dems from trying blame Bush just as some Repubs are now trying to blame Obama.  So is the nature of our "us against them" two party system.

[bruce MN]

Don't know if you saw this down below or not dag and by know it's buried back a couple of pages, but this guy, writing 20 years ago addresses some of what you ask at there at the end.  Quite the prophet actually.  One of the things he mentions is society having lost a clear language of politics so that, even back then already, definitions of common terms such as left and right and consdervative and liberal were being muddled together in a sort of rhetorical mush (must have seen the 2000s coming were a society evolved where anyting could mean anything you wanted it to to anybody....SEE: Donald Rumsfeld) 

Anyway, if you've got 10 minutes I'd be intersted in your thoughts:

http://community.agriculture.com/t5/Ag-Forum/Mish-Shelock-tackles-Paul-Krugman/m-p/195691#M58405

[kraft-t]

The significant difference is that Bush inherited a budget surplus projected out over 4 years. He and the right cut taxes on the premise of a more robust economy and job creation.

If you note on hawkens chart that when Bush took office employment was high and after the tax cuts the employment level never return to the levels of the clinton administration.

Admittedly we had the dot com recession  which sank the economy a bit, but  the tax cuts never increased employment to the level of Clinton not in 8 years. The Bushies decided to go to two wars and not raise apenny in taxes to support them. Even today with out troops still in Afghanistan, the right will still not raise taxes to support those troops. 

Obama did nothing to create these huge deficits and Bush did. It's in the records. You only need to logically assess the blame to where it rightfully goes.

Blaming Obama for hiuge deficits is like blaming a fireman for using too much water!

[dagwud]

Don, you keep saying the Bush tax cuts are responsible for our red ink as they reduced our federal tax revenues.  As I pointed out in another thread that simply is not true.

"From 2004 to 2007, federal tax revenues increased by $785 billion, the largest four-year increase in American history. According to the Treasury Department, individual and corporate income tax receipts were up 40 percent in the three years following the Bush tax cuts. The rich paid an even higher percentage of the total tax burden than they had at any time in at least the previous 40 years."

The problem was that under Bush spending increased as he never had the guts to veto any of the pork spending.

I'm still struggling to understand why if the Bush taxes did not work and were such a bad thing why then did Obama and a Dem controlled Congress extend them???

I sure don't blame our huge deficit all on Obama but I sure don't buy your line that Obama has nothing to with it either.

According to CBO's own numbers total federal spending has definitely gone up under Obama.

Bush vs. Obama Spending the Truth

Obama spent approximately $535 billion more year-over-year then Bush’s highest year of spending. Because of the continuing recession and slowed GDP, the deficit increased by a staggering $960 billion in 1 year.

$794 billion was spent on military expenditures, more than in 2008 while Bush was still president. That cost is almost a wash, but it is a surprising number considering the anti-war stance Obama drove during his campaign.

I also do not want to confuse the reduction in federal revenue with the increase in our federal deficit. This would be unfair to Obama in comparing his spending to Bush’s spending. Rising unemployment and slowed GDP lead to less tax revenue which also increases the federal deficit.

[dagwud]

I had not seen that Bruce.  If one did not know the date of the writing you would easily assume it was written fairly recently as opposed to 20 years ago.

Pretty hard not to agree with much of what he says.  I especially like his comment: "For example, in a single decade the idea of using public debt as an economic tool has moved from the heroic to the villainous."

This no doubt the lines between Repubs vs Dems and liberals vs conservatives is becoming more blurred  every day.  Bush was a "conservative" Repub that never had the guts to stand up to Dems or his own party and veto any pork barrel spending.

Obama was the anti-war candidate and Nobel Peace Prize recipient that has gone to use predator drone strikes far more often then Bush.

Both parties get their financial advice from Wall Street and let the big banks take control of the steering wheel.

Both parties when in power like to down play how bad the economy or jobs situation is and think they can magically fix all that ails us simply by waving their magic wand.

I agree the right likes to be the guys tough on crime and enact stupid legislation like three strikes and your out there by putting non-violent small time criminals in prison which results in the need for more costly prisons as well as helping turn the small time criminals into more violent and better trained criminals while keeping them from ever making restitution to their victims.

Looks like the book would make for some intersting reading.