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Originally Posted by Tully Mars
I don't hear Obama blaming Bush. I hear people like me doing that. The Bush policies lead to a complete freaking free fall in my opinion. Spend, spend and spend some more. Regulations? We don't need no stinking regulations! We may never recover. As for Bush's programs being paid for I'd need a link or a source to verify that, honestly I just don't believe that. The guy never saw a dollar he didn't want to borrow... and spend. I know he sure heck didn't pay for the "war of terror." Didn't even include the cost in his budgets. You can't keep increasing spending, borrowing and cutting taxes forever. Crap like that got the US in the quagmire it's in now. And unless you're cartoon character of Bangkok transvestite on the "Family Guy" being in a quagmire is not where you want to be.
I'm not thrilled with everything Obama does but compared to the GOP and Bush/ (deficits don't matter)Cheney he looks pretty damn good to me. Which, of course, is kind of like saying he's the best looking turd in the sewer.
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As recently as last February, Obama was still in 'blame Bush' mode
Obama Won't Abandon Blame Bush Strategy - US News and World Report
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The White House has no plans to give up on its blame-Bush strategy. A White House adviser says that George W. Bush and his policies created "the hole we're in," and President Obama will keep reminding the country of the economic "mess" he inherited. Obama takes frequent jabs at his predecessor for leaving him an economy that was teetering on the brink of collapse, and White House aides say he won't stop anytime soon. At a meeting Wednesday with Senate Democrats, for example, Obama rejected Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln's call for him to move to the center. Obama said, "If the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place for eight years leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression ... the result is going to be the same. I don't know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policy that got us into this fix in the first place." Last week, Obama also issued a blame-Bush statement with his budget request: "On the day my administration took office," he said, "we faced an additional $7.5 trillion in national debt by the end of this decade as a result of the failure to pay for two large tax cuts, primarily for the wealthiest Americans, and a new entitlement program. We also inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression—which, even before we took any action, added an additional $3 trillion to the national debt.
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Wikipedia, for what it's worth has an article about the TARP with repayments
Troubled Asset Relief Program - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The first few articles in this google search seem to tell a generally positive repayment story
how much tarp repaid - Google Search
Sorry for not posting full text but there's lot of text and I don't want to create a huge post.
As far as deficits, Bush's deficits were pretty much in the $400 billion range except for 2008, and Obama's have been well over $1 trillion for the last couple years and not projected to decline below $1 trillion for a few years. Obama's going to end up well past the $7.5 trillion addition to the debt he was worried about.
Causes for the economic problems? I've seen a lot of debate on that with explanations of too many people taking out home equity loans, second mortgages and signing for questionable loans. All of that activity pushed up demand for real estate and put a lot of money into the economy that would be 'paid back later'. So I'm not convinced the crash is entirely due to corporate greed. Individual borrower greed and stupidity had a lot to do with it too. I think the crash has affected people's willingness to live on money they don't have and that we will have a fundamentally smaller economy for years to come. Artificially spiking the economy with government giveaway programs like Obama did aren't going to do much long term.
As far as an individual being able to spook investors, Obama has managed to do that twice now. First, when he took office, the DJIA was in the 8200 range. Obama was making negative statements about the economy and by the beginning of March the DJIA was around 6200. He did it again, back in the early days of the BP oil spill, where he made comments about punishing BP, causing the share price to tank and causing a minor international incident.