Plan B Forum

For those who cling to the fiction that everything is George Bush's fault:

The day the Democrats assumed power was not Jan. 22, 2009, with Obama's swearing in; it was actually Jan. 3, 2007, the day they took over the House of Representatives and the Senate. As of that date, the Democrat Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since 1995. On that day:

• The Dow Jones closed at 12,621.77.

• The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5 percent.

• The unemployment rate was 4.6 percent.

• George Bush's economic policies had set a record of 52 straight months of job growth.

• Jan. 3, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee. Both men played key roles in the economic meltdown that happened 15 months later.

• Bush asked Congress 17 times to stop Fannie and Freddie, starting in 2001.

• And who fought against reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Obama, Barney and the Democrat Congress.

• April, 2001: The administration's FY02 budget declares that the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is "a potential problem," affecting federally insured entities and economic activity.

• May 2002: The president calls for the disclosure and corporate governance principles contained in his 10-point plan for corporate responsibility to apply to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

• Budgets don't come from the White House. They come from Congress. The party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democrat Party. And the Democrats controlled the budget process for 2008-09 as well as 2010-11.

• For 2009, the Democrat Congress passed a massive omnibus spending bill.

• Barack Obama was a member of that Congress and signed the omnibus bill as president.

• If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets -- the lowest in five years and the fourth-straight decline in deficit spending.

• If Obama inherited any deficit, he inherited it from himself, not George Bush, and then expanded it four-fold.

[Not my words]

Now class, who would like to go first to point out the flaws in Dave's reasoning and which facts he is wrong about?

yrs,
rubato

dgs49 wrote:[Not my words]

Translation: I don't care if it's true or not as long as the Democratic Party is blamed somehow.

"The numbers are mind boggling. From the second quarter of 2007, i.e., the first full quarter of a Pelosi-Reid dominated Congress and a politically weakened President Bush, to the second quarter of 2009 when President Obama assumed office, government spending skyrocketed to 27.3% of GDP from 21.4%. It was the largest peacetime expansion of government spending in U.S. history."

"CloseAfter taking office in 2009, with spending and debt already at record high levels and the deficit headed to $1 trillion, President Obama proceeded to pass his own $830 billion stimulus, auto bailouts, mortgage relief plans, the Dodd-Frank financial reforms and the $1.7 trillion ObamaCare entitlement (which isn't even accounted for in the chart). While spending did come down in 2010, it wasn't the result of spending cuts but rather because TARP loans began to be repaid, and that cash was counted against spending."


[WSJ]

By the way, I'm anxiously awaiting Rubato's pointing out the errors in my original post.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

dgs49 wrote:• George Bush's economic policies had set a record of 52 straight months of job growth.

Republican-speak for "Our policies lost more private-sector jobs since the Great Depression, and we're proud of it!"

dgs49 wrote:• Bush asked Congress 17 times to stop Fannie and Freddie, starting in 2001.

In 2005, the Republican-led House of Representatives attempted to pass a bill that would have tightened regulations on Fanny and Freddie, but the measure was opposed by President Bush.

dgs49 wrote:• Budgets don't come from the White House. They come from Congress. The party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democrat Party. And the Democrats controlled the budget process for 2008-09 as well as 2010-11.

And thanks to that whole "checks and balances" thing, the budget still has to be approved by the President.

'Inhereting' - is that at all related to excreting?

No, heresy.