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No surprise here
In eight days, Barack Obama will take over the nation’s top job and move into the White House. As the transition nears, the news media are being flooded with reports summing up just exactly how bad the economy was during Bush’s tenure as president.
The recession has been going on for 13 months, but even before the economy began to shrink, it was not doing well. When Bush took over as president in 2001, the federal government actually had a small budget surplus. It didn’t take long for that to change. By 2004 the government had accrued a deficit of 4.9 percent of the GDP.
Slow going
After his re-election, Bush failed to amend Social Security and Medicare. His several attempts to repair the health-care industry were thwarted. As Obama prepares to take over the Oval Office, Henry Blodget from the Huffington Post warns that repairing the economy will take a long time.The payday loan industry will likely continue to see a lot of business for some time as Americans’ finances continue to be squeezed.
Blodget predicts that unemployment will remain at 7.3 percent, its current rate, for three years. Over Bush’s eight years in office, jobs grew by only 2 percent, the lowest growth in recorded history. Job growth has been measured for seven decades. GDP growth, 2.1 percent, was the lowest it’s been since Truman was president.
Changing hands
Obama has asked that Bush request the other half of the federal bailout money, a sum of $350 billion. A letter from Obama’s economic director outlines the President-elect’s plans for using the rest of the funds.
Obama says he plans to broaden the goals tied to the use of the bailout money. He also plans to impose tough restrictions and oversight regarding how the money is used. The use of the first $350 billion given to the Treasury was not tracked, and it is unknown where much of that money went.
Runs in the family
Jobs only saw 2 percent growth during Bush’s tenure, a far cry from the almost 21 percent growth that took place during Clinton’s presidency. During Bush Senior’s four years in the White House, job growth was also dismal, only 2.4 percent.
It’s not a Republican thing. Jobs grew almost 18 percent during the Reagan administration. It seems to just be a Bush thing. Remember that, in case a familiar name pops up on the 2012 ballot.
Deeper in debt
Obama is charged with turning the economy around, and he certainly has his work cut out for him. Besides deciding where the other$350 billion in bailout money will go, he is putting together an $800 billion stimulus package that he hopes will create jobs and get the economy back on track. He wants the plan to be put to a vote this week.
Congress has the authority to block the spending of the rest of the bailout money, but it is widely expected that Congress will comply with Bush’s request and release the money to Obama.
Your payday loan source keeps you up to date on the nation’s finances.
Though I agree that President Bush hasn’t helped the economy, I think it pertinent to say that the effects from economic policy aren’t felt until a year or longer after policy was implemented. That said, President Bush didn’t help with the turn towards complete deregulation – it has become apparent that Wall Street and the banking/credit firms simply can’t be trusted; their greed is too powerful.
The connection between over-spending and the Bush presidencies may be mostly tied to the expenses of doing battle (both father & son Bush). You have to ask, “Did the president initiate the conflict or was he drawn in?” and “How could things have been handled less expensively and what would the trade-off have been? Would we have seen more NYC-style terrorist attacks completed?” Sadly, at that point the question becomes, “How will we ever know that either President Bush handled things wrong or right?”
Hopefully the next time I see Bush and/or Cheney will be on the back of a milk carton, I can’t call them fools because they fooled most of the Country and put us in a hole so deep it will take the next 30 years to fill it, if there is a place called hell we can take comfort that they will both burn in it for an eternity, since I’m not religious I will settle for giving them 25 to life at one of Cheny’s own prisons that have non-compete federal funding.
I pray the new administration will actually bring the “change” the American country is desperately in need of. The new economic stimulus plan Obama is creating sounds like a fresh start. All we know for a fact is that the current administration is doing more harm than good for the economy. Of course, we might want to carefully analyze every move we make, but we should not be intimidated and shy away from trying something new. We won’t really know the extent of a proposal until we’ve actually done it.