Bill Kristol: Obama turned around Bush's economic meltdown

but i thought he was a socialist

 

That is silly. The meltdown wasn't caused by Bush's policies, the only thing it did was to cause the US government to have less tools to battle the economic downturn.

I guess blaming it on the guy is a good strategy as most people are idiots.

 

You are right of course; it wasn't bush policies.

it was republican policies

 

So are we going to see our POTUS run on his record for the past 4 years?? I hope so.

 

psst, he has been

 

Romney = Dubya's third term.

 

I like the part he says "How long do you like to be held after sex? All night, right? See, that's your problem. Somewhere between 30 seconds and all night is your problem."

 

Bush was a spendaholic with 2 wars, tax cuts, TARP, Medicare Part B, etc. Rich got richer and the country got poorer. Pay down that debt and watch the economy grow.

 

You will never pay down the debt by running $1.2 trillion in deficits annually. There just aren't enough fat cats to make up the entire difference by increasing their taxation. To fix the debt problem, there will have to be both meaningful tax increases and meaningful spending cuts. Doing one without the other will not be sufficient.

 

Bill Kristol handing out all sorts of wisdom to Romney....

Someone posted Jamie Dimon's ideas on the causes for the meltdown. A big part why it blew up on Dubya was the ginormous account deficits he held with the 2 wars, increased discretionary spending, a low low interest rate policy and no successes reducing our trade deficit to a sane level.

Both parties created this mess over a span of 30 years, but there's good arguments to be made that repo panics could've been mitigated or delayed (though not prevented) away from the consecutive commodities bubbles and the big daddy housing bubble.

There were a ****load of meltdowns on Bush's watch. Not one.

 

The US spent 460 billion importing oil in 2011. We reduce that to zero and (fat chance, but regardless) our trade account deficit would go down to a third or fourth. A better conservation and fuel efficiency policy would go a long way to reducing the trillion dollar deficits at the expense of "burdening companies".

Another gorilla is our overburdensome Social Security and Medicare programs that will face ongoing waves of retiring boomers. Neither party is discussing these funding problems seriously, despite lip service that "Social Security can be saved", which even then doesn't address how Obamacare will have to evolve in the coming decade to handle a shortage in the supply of medical professionals and overall health services, let alone the increasing costs and demands of higher end medical technology.

It's an open secret that we'd ideally need another healthcare reform plan in the next 10-15 years, hopefully with data and lessons learned from the provisions of the ACA.

There's a ****load of things Bush neglected while sitting on a "budget surplus". Those Bush Tax Cuts he pushed through with reconciliation will prove to be the most wasteful act of spending considering the pressing infrastructural and social needs the US will require in the next 50 years to compete with other nations and the social demographic changes of a insanely large "entitlement class" that neither party will say no to.

 

That was a joke.. Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally. Failed. but. I stand by my decision

 

Just to clarify - trade account deficit and budget deficits aren't really related in any meaningful way. They may affect each other to some extent by impacts on interest rates or inflation, but the two are unrelated numbers in any major sense. Reducing one doesn't affect the other and vice-versa.

 

No, it is not all Bush's fault but his finger prints are all over the economic collapse. You cannot fight a multi front war, cut taxes and alienate the rest of the world and think there will not be consequences.

 

But it's really hard for a politician to get elected and then re-elected supporting tax increases and spending cuts. Fiscal cliff here we come.

 

Yes, many of which were signed into law by the hero of this year's Democratic convention.

 

True, but don't pretend that things have changed in the last 4 years

 

I think it still goes a long way. "Strong dollar" policies usually happen during trade account surplus years. This spurs more foreign investment into the US rather than foreign banks and nations keeping mountains of paper money to stimulate thair export economies.

While this could spark another round of offshoring (doubtful that it'd be more than it is right now) to leverage cheaper workers from a weaker foreign economy, higher interest rates would give the Fed one of the tools they've lost with ZIRP for the last 5+ years.

I generally think a stronger economy follows a trade surplus. Baring another Bush tax cut to re-redistribute wealth, stronger economies usually mean more overlays and receipts for the government. Part of the runup of our budget deficit from 400 billion to 1.2 trillion is the fact that our economy is weaker and the government, were they to keep their spending static since 08 (despite inflation and pop growth), had to spend more to retain the same output with less receipts at hand.

So you're technically right, but I think my points are more grounded in historical reality than a bar napkin about trickle down hocus pocus.

It's a funny joke. I seriously thought you were posting from a different thread.