11.23.09
Putting the “Bush is to blame” meme out of its misery
It occurs to me that the way to shed real light on the “our-current-troubles-are-W’s-fault” narrative – and thus make it disappear of its own fatuousness – is to grant the validity of every claim that he was a spendthrift. It’s a simple matter of being in line with reality.
So, let’s construct an entirely theoretical scenario. Let’s say W and the pork-addicted RINOs in Congress during the W years had been fiscally responsible and had left TCM with a decent budget surplus with which to begin his governing. No bailouts, no TARP funds. Now, in this scenario, all other things are going to be equal. Pelosi would still have passed the “stimulus.” The budget figures would still be what they actually are. TARP, since it has actually been used since January, would have been created on TCM’s watch. Efforts to enact socialist health care and cap-and-trade would be proceeding as they actually are. Phasing out of the W tax cuts would be factored into the business world’s strategic planning, just as it actually is.
We would still be looking at unprecedented levels of deficit, debt and unemployment. One can’t put an exact number on it. that would depend on the baseline for a hypothetical surplus one wanted to establish for this exercise. In fact, if one were a real numbers wiz, it would be interesting to calculate just what debt and deficit levels would be starting from different hypothetical surplus figures.
The point here is that W’s irresponsibility pales beside TCM’s wanton destructiveness, both numerically and in the sense that the passage of time has seen to it that the current state of affairs is wholly owned by him and his fellow FHers. They have had ten months in which they could have made decisions conducive to America’s health and strength. That they have chosen otherwise makes the actual baseline they were handed on January 20 pretty much irrelelvant.
Mr. Dings said,
November 23, 2009 at 10:20 pm
No mention of the catastrophic meltdown, Both you and Bush missed that, apparently. It easily and adequately explains the debt and deficit levels. Bush’s tax cuts were a large factor in his indebtedness to China and other foreign lands. That’s freedom, boys, being forced to allow China a say in our economic affairs.
Mr. Dings said,
November 23, 2009 at 10:30 pm
And continued off-shoring, record corporate fraud exposure and continuing major bankruptcies and bank failures during and as a result of what happened during the Bush administration have nothing to do with the current unemployment rate? , Gotta love freedom, though, and call those you blame (anyone but yourselves, leaders and movers, shakers and makers) freedom haters:
Here’s a hint at what is still coming further down the pike, received just today from a friend who works for a major international insurer in Indy that has left him as one of less than a third of his office remaining after lay-offs in his office over the past year and a half. But we cannot brook a national single-payer health plan to cover the increasing numbers of unemployed in addition to the 40 plus million disputed numbers who already have no insurance. How’s this all gonna pan out? Hint: it’s a formerly US owned company that is now foreign-owned:
“They’re working us like borrowed mules. They’ve taken away our ability/authority to physically issue checks ourselves. Now we must fill out a form and email it to a company in India to issue checks. That’ll save money. Take it from salaried employees and hire a company to do it instead.”
Another friend of mine got an unsolicited call to attend a job interview within 24 hours notice in her domicile. From a company in India that grabbed her resume off the internet.
Bentnotesmanhisself said,
November 24, 2009 at 1:18 am
re: your friend wirth the India job interview: fantastic! Glad to hear she may have work!
We both – indeed, everyone – knows- that the meltdown has its roots in Democratic initiatives, particularly the Community Reinvestment Act. And can we please dispense wit htaht 40-plus million figure? Cut out the young people who have decided to forego insurance, as well as the illegal aliens and it’s something much smaller and in need of a much different solution than socilaism.
Bentnotesmanhisself said,
November 24, 2009 at 1:20 am
Oh, and nothing in your comments even attempts to address the scenario I’ve outlined. The whole look at TCM’s quadrupling of the debt.
Mr. Dings said,
November 24, 2009 at 3:41 am
Oh, my friend got the job, but the American placement service got the commission, not the Indian pirates. I am not sure what the deal is there, but they are probably owned by Americans. Where is the quadrupling? It has already been quadrupled since 1990 by Reagan and the 2 Bushes. Clinton maintained it. I posted that proof in another thread, but here it is again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt
Public debt in dollars quadrupled during the Reagan and Bush presidencies from 1980 to 1992, and remained at about the same level by the end of the Clinton presidency in 2000. During the administration of President George W. Bush, the debt increased from $5.6 trillion in January 2001 to $10.7 trillion by December 2008,[6] rising from 54% of GDP to 75% of GDP. The debt is projected to continue increasing significantly during President Obama’s administration to 100% of GDP, its highest level since World War II.
Year Gross Debt in Billions [7] as % of GDP
1910 2.6 n/a
1920 25.9 n/a
1930 16.2 n/a
1940 43.0 52.4
1950 257.4 94.1
1960 290.5 56.1
1970 380.9 37.6
1980 909.0 33.3
1990 3,206.3 55.9
2000 5,628.7 58.0
2001 5,769.9 57.4
2002 6,198.4 59.7
2003 6,760.0 62.6
2004 7,354.7 63.9
2005 7,905.3 64.6
2006 8,451.4 65.0
2007 8,950.7 65.6
2008 9,985.8 70.2
2009 (est.) 12,867.5 90.4
2010 (est.) 14,456.3 98.1
2011 (est.) 15,673.9 101.0
2012 (est.) 16,565.7 100.6
2013 (est.) 17,440.2 99.7
2014 (est.) 18,350.0 99.8
Sure, it’s going to continue to go up under Obama. He didn’t just pull this crap out of thin air. But don’t say it hasn’t gone up before.
Mr. Dings said,
November 24, 2009 at 3:43 am
And don’t try to tell me that the primary cause of the meltdown was democrat housing initiatives. It’s contributory, but only a few of the many commentators blame the entire thing on that.
Mr. Dings said,
November 24, 2009 at 12:12 pm
The damage has been done over the decades. We are now dealing with the innumerable chickens that have come home to roost. We created this monster. Can we control it? Name calling and blaming, I suppose, have their place, but is it productive? Bloggie seems to yearn for anything but the current efforts at a fix. He says we’re toast and the toasting is a result of the last 10 months of the current freely elected administration, but he says it has been a long time coming too, mainly, as I read him, because of a certain moral and spiritual degeneracy his ilk are immune to, or have been and are able to withstand. He wants a return to the way things have always been, which, of course, will likely only continue to get us what we’ve gotten into now.
Bentnotesmanhisself said,
November 24, 2009 at 3:13 pm
These aren’t efforts at a fix. They are deliberate attempts to cripple America so as to transform it into a totalitarian dicatorship.
Well, if you mean by “the way things have always been,” a representative democracy with a free-market economy and a culture guided by the best moral insights offered by Western civilization, yes, I think that’s worth preserving.
How come, given your belief that these are “efforts to fix,” you don’t have much to say about the soaring increase in public debt from here through 2014 shown in your chart?