Don't just skim over this, read it slowly and let it sink in. If in doubt, check it out.
The day the democrats took over was not January 22nd 2009. It was actually January 3rd 2007, the day the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and the Senate, at the very start of the 110th Congress.
The Democrat Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995.
This is a little sleight of hand trick on the author’s part. The Democrats did not “take over” in 2007. They won a majority in the house and with two independent Senators caucusing with the Democrats, they had an organizational advantage in the Senate.
For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is "Bush's Fault", think about this:
January 3rd, 2007 was the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress. At the time:
Again, this is a slight-of-hand by the author as it requires the reader to believe that the Democrats “took over” in January of 2007. It is repeated so that the reader begins to believe it without questioning its validity. Bush was still in office in January of 2007. The Democrats only had control over the house and only had organizational control of the Senate (because of the two Independent Senators). An interesting challenge would be to ask the author to please list the bills that were passed during 2007 that contributed in any way to the disaster which was the result of years and years worth of deregulation. Hint: There aren’t any. None. Zero.
The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77
The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%
The Unemployment rate was 4.6%
These are accurate numbers but unfortunately not relevant because at this time, January of 2007, the housing and mortgage crisis was just starting to unravel. Almost every economist agrees that the crisis was brought on by massive deregulation that was pushed for and passed by Republicans way before the 110th congress.
George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB GROWTH
This is true! George Bush had 52 consecutive months of job growth. While this is good, we have to remember that job growth is supposed to happen and is considered the norm. Having that many consecutive months of growth is good and I’ll give credit where it is due. But let’s not have a big party about it because when you look at how many jobs were created during that time period it’s not so impressive. The Bush administration gets credit for creating 8.6 million jobs between 2003 and 2008 and while that is good (it’s better than losing them) when you look at the 22.7 million jobs created under Bill Clinton’s administration, it’s really nothing to celebrate. Incidentally, Clinton churned out those numbers without consecutive job creation. Clinton had 7 months of job declines. While job growth (the norm) is good, it doesn’t begin to tell the whole story.
January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.
The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?
BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!
Frank/Dodd had nothing to do with the mortgage and housing crisis. In 2003 Barney Frank went to bat opposing a Bush-led effort to lessen oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Bush won the battle and allowed them to offer subprime mortgages which we can all agree was not a good idea. When a bill was introduced requiring more regulation of Fannie and Freddie, Bush opposed it. You won’t find one legitimate economist that attributes the housing crisis entirely to Frank or Dodd.
Unemployment... to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES!
Again...deregulation is a Republican-backed set of policies. The Democrats wanted more regulation, not less. This is exactly why Democrats opposed deregulation. To say that the crisis was Frank’s and Dodd’s fault is a false statement. Period.
Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie - starting in 2001 because it was financially risky for the US economy.
I find this one particularly goofy because it accounts for the times that Bush mentioned “modernizing” Fannie and Freddie (in speeches mostly, not formally). He never called for Fannie and Freddie to be “Stopped”, just modernized. The thing that I find a bit humorous about this statement is that it says right there that Bush started requesting this in 2001. So, according to this post, his requests were denied by his Republican House and Senate for 6 years before the Democrats “took over” in 2007. Why? Because it called for regulation (which would have helped prevent the collapse).
And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? OBAMA
Huh? I don’t even understand this one. Pay-off? That sounds illegal! How was Obama paid off? How much did he make? If Obama was the third highest, who were the first and second people to get paid off? I guess the bigger question is who paid him off and what did they get for their money?
And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie?
OBAMA and the Democrat Congress
This statement is incorrect. Obama was still a Senator when he wrote a letter to congress calling for reform of Fannie and Freddie. Additionally, two years ago he provided a report to congress titled “Reforming America’s Housing Finance Market.” Here’s the first line of the introduction of that document: “This paper lays out the Administration’s plan to reform America's housing finance market...” It’s a 31 page document that specifically calls for reform of Fannie and Freddie. So who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie? Well, it wasn’t Obama and it wasn’t the Democratic Congress.
So when someone tries to blame Bush...
REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007.... THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!"
Again, just an attempt to solidify the misdirection... The Democrats did not “take over” in 2007.
Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for 2008 & 2009 as well as 2010 &2011.
In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.
Somewhat belatedly? This was Bush’s last year in office we’re talking about. Bush was on a spending spree for 7 years then he tries to reign in the spending at the end of year 8 and the author calls that “somewhat belatedly?” Let’s not forget that Bush didn’t account for either the Iraq or the Afghanistan wars in his budget plan. I won’t say exactly how much those wars cost but I will give you a hint. It starts with “T” and ends with “rillion”
For 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the 2009 budgets.
In 2009 Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi bypassed Bush? By passing resolutions to keep the government running for 20 days? The omnibus bill was passed in the House by a vote of 245-178 (16 votes came from Republicans) and the Senate 62-35 (8 from Republicans).
And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete 2009.
The author says that congress passed “all of these massive spending bills.” Which spending bills? They were never listed. The author fails to list the any of the “massive spending bills” because there aren’t any. It was Bush that asked for $700 billion to fund TARP and the bailout of the auto industry and it was Bush that signed it into law, not Obama.
If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets.
When the author says that Bush was responsible for the lowest deficit in 5 years, it’s important to note that 5 years earlier Bush was president. He had been president for two years. When he took office, he was handed a surplus. Bush turned that surplus into a deficit year after year after year. So it’s nice that one of those years he created a lower deficit than he did in the previous 6 years he was president, but he shouldn’t get credit for not increasing the deficit as much in one of those years as he did the rest of them. It would be like a serial arsonist asking for a pat on the back for the year he burned down fewer buildings than usual.
If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself. In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since.
I’m not going to pick this particular statement apart. The truth is that the economic disaster could and should be blamed on years of bad policies and practices. There were many factors that caused the economic meltdown and none of it should be put on any one person’s shoulders. It is clear though that the problem was largely due to deregulation of housing and finance. Deregulation is another way of saying “less government.” While there are government departments and programs that should be cut or trimmed, the economic disaster that we were faced with when Obama took office was a direct result of Republican deregulation. It was Republican policies that allowed the fox to guard the henhouse. The most important thing to remember is that starting on January 3, 2007, George Bush had the power to veto any bill that might have stopped the Democratic House and Senate from “destroying the economy”. Here are the bills he chose to veto in 2007. You’ll note that none of the have anything to do with the economic disaster that the author blames on Obama and the Democrats:
- Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007
- Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007
- Water Resources Development Act of 2007
- Appropriations: Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, 2008
- Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007
- National Defense Authorization Act for FY2008
- Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008
- Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008
- Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008
