Accurate, but probably not something he should be saying. RT @MPOTheHill: Biden calls the economy ‘the Bush recession’ http://bit.ly/bNOU6u
Accurate, but probably not something he should be saying. RT @MPOTheHill: Biden calls the economy ‘the Bush recession’ http://bit.ly/bNOU6u
For greater accuracy, it should be called the Pelosi / Reid-Obama / Bush Recession – since all were involved in government during 2007-2008 …
For even greater accuracy, since Bush/GOP Congress did manage to keep the US out of recession in spite of 9/11, this *is* the Pelosi/Reid/Obama Recession since all three are actively promoting and continuing to promote the policies which are making it harder and harder for the US to come back out of recession …
Bush and the GOP Congress did NOT “manage to keep the US out of recession in spite of 9/11.” This is simply a false statement. The economy was already in recession when 9/11 happened (though that fact may not have been recognized until later, as is often the case with recessions), and that recession continued for some time afterward, until late 2001 or early 2002, I believe. Not surprisingly, Republicans contemporaneously blamed Clinton’s policies for that recession. (Back then, promoting historical context was all the rage on the Right. Now, not so much.)
Moreover, to the extent policymakers made it a “soft landing” recession, preventing it from being more severe or long-lasting, they did so largely through the use of extreme monetary stimulus by the Fed, lowering interest rates to extremely low levels for an extremely long period of time, which in turn fueled the growth of housing bubble, and led directly to the recent massive crash, financial crisis, and deep recession. That is an historical fact recognized by virtually everyone with a working knowledge of the last 10 years of U.S. economic and financial history. Thus, I would argue that the Bush Administration (to the extent the Fed is really part of any one “administration,” which is questionable — but either Bush gets both credit & blame for the Fed’s actions, or else neither; you were giving him credit, so now I’ll give him blame) did little more than kick the can down the road, making the 2008-10 (-11? -12?) recession worse in order to make the 2001-02 recession better. Heckuva job, Greenie!
P.S. I would also note that, although the 2001-02 recession was a relatively “mild” recession (thanks to excessive, bubble-inflating monetary stimulus), the recovery of the job market took an exceptionally long time, stretching well into 2003. There’s a nifty chart of this that I can’t find right now, so I don’t know the exact details, but it definitely took a long time for the jobs to come back, even after the economy had “recovered.”
This is not necessarily Bush’s or the GOP’s fault — the lengthening of the period of time it takes the job market to recover from recessions has been an ongoing trend, caused largely by structural factors beyond any one administration’s control (and that same trend is rearing its ugly head even more significantly now) — but it does make the notion that Bush and the GOP Congress “managed to keep the US out of recession in spite of 9/11” even more absurd. The “Main Street” economy was in an effective recession, even if the GDP numbers didn’t reflect it, for roughly two years after 9/11. Again, I’m not saying that’s Bush’s fault, but you’re trying to give him credit for something that simply didn’t happen.
And again, to the extent it DID happen (i.e., to the extent that Bush/Greenspan policies helped soften the blow and reduce the impact of the 2001-02/03 recession that you’re pretending never happened), it was largely because of “kick the can down the road” policies, which in turn helped PRODUCE (or at least drastically WORSEN) what you are myopically and clownishly calling the “Pelosi/Reid/Obama Recession.”
P.P.S. In sum, history did not begin on January 20, 2009.
Obama destroyed the US economy before he even took office. People on this very board said that because a Democrat was a front-runner to win the election throughout 2008 it caused the recession. You can’t win this argument Brendan, it’s not rooted in reason or logic.
Brendan – in 2003/2004/2005/2006, what direction/trend is clearly visible in the size of the annual federal budget deficit ? Per the CBO ?
$ quote:
“Well, it runs out when the problems go away,” Pelosi said in early June when asked if there was a limit to how long Democrats could blame Bush.
How true.
@#6, didn’t Bush and Republicans in congress and the senate increase spending and expand government during that time period more than any other time in American history? 2 wars, new intelligence agencies, homeland security department, Halliburton and Blackwater contracts, etc. I know republicans think murdering people is money better spent than anything done domestically, but the facts are the facts.
Joe Mama #7 – how prophetic ! When Madame Speaker is no longer Speaker, that particular problem will indeed have gone away …
SU #8 – in spite of “Bush and Republicans in congress and the senate increase spending and expand government during that time period “, in 2003/2004/2005/2006, what direction/trend is clearly visible in the size of the annual federal budget deficit ? Per the CBO ?
I would happily accept Obama / Biden calling it the Greenspan recession. But I think Congress is equally culpable from a policy perspective — their push for higher rates of homeownership (particularly among the poor and minorities = subprime and Alt-A) and decision to look the other way at the financial malfeasance taking place at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was eyebrow-raising at the time, and damn near criminal in hindsight (I worked for a Republican congressman who worked his ass off to rein in Fannie and Freddie back in 2003-2004, only to see the bills gutted in committee time and time again by Dodd and Frank maneuverings).
But from my perspective, the Greenspan-Dodd-Frank axis of recession only explains things up to the Fall of 2008, at which point I am happy to heap blame on Bush as well for his approach to the bailouts and his implicit support of Paulson’s Treasury agenda, which seemed designed more to provide cover for his fat-cat buddies on Wall Street to make speedy exits while the house burned down than it did to actually putting out the fire. But I can’t even pin all the blame for that on Bush, because his key partners in that agenda were the Congressional Democrats, and Obama / Geithner / Bernanke only anted up on their predecessors’ approach, throwing in kazillions in wasteful stimulus, monetary stimulus, and needless political meddling in the markets.
But at the end of the day, all of those past sins only serve to explain what took us to the nadir and caused the economy to sputter sideways for most of 2009; to me it’s mind-numbingly obvious that what’s holding the economy back from true recovery is the Obama agenda. Investors and businesses see the tax hikes coming down the pike, and they’ve already watched deficits careen into unbelievable ratios as a result of wasteful stimulus spending and a radical legislative agenda implemented to “take full advantage of the crisis” (as the Democrats were inclined to describe it). Heckuva job, Pelosi / Reid / Obama!