Michael Moore wants Matt Damon to run for Obama's chair in the White House

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Flame Of Liberty

the idea that simply by hurling money at banks, corporations, or investors, this crisis will automagically self-correct

Hurling money = spending, for all intents and purposes.

We can argue if spending on infrastructure is "good" during a recession, but the main point (that I guess you were making) is that government should be spending its way out of a recession/depression.

That idea is fundamentally wrong, and arguing where the money should go is of secondary importance.

Well the last time I looked you believed in a no rules financial structure where capitalism will work everything out, and since that's what got us into this mess, so I'll take your conclusions with a grain of salt.

[pepper24]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

[\QUOTE]

I'm not avoiding anything. Bush came into power just as the Tech bubble burst. He saw a across the board tax cut as a way to keep the economy perking. It worked and America sat at full employment even through the dark times. Remember 9/11 and what that did to the economy. A recession was predicted then but, never happened.

9/11 changed everything. The government needed to deal with the possibility of more real security threats on their own soil while going after the organization that caused the problem. Homeland security came into being along with a war in Afganistan. Those cost a ton of money. Could he had retracted his tax cuts then? Sure but, again he didn't want to do anything to slow the expanding economy. Remember it was only 3 or 4 years after the tax cuts where the GDP grew enough to cover the lost revenue.

Iraq again cost a ton of money. The fighting was only half of it. They determined to rebuild the infrastucture they had blown up. But during this time America prospered. That was important to Bush because the 9/11 attack was designed to take out the American economy. During the height of the wars, the infrastructure spending, and the forming of Homeland security the biggest deficits Bush put forth were around half a trillion. The rest came from taxation.

All I read is excuses of the Tech Bubble and 9/11 for reasons why a 'fiscal conservative' acted so irresponsibly. You are still avoiding the reality that cutting taxes while increasing spending caused half of the current deficit and ultimately the worst recession/depression since the Great Depression.

I guess you can use the excuse that Obama came into power just as the Credit Crisis was happening then.......

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by pepper24

All I read is excuses of the Tech Bubble and 9/11 for reasons why a 'fiscal conservative' acted so irresponsibly. You are still avoiding the reality that cutting taxes while increasing spending caused half of the current deficit and ultimately the worst recession/depression since the Great Depression.

I guess you can use the excuse that Obama came into power just as the Credit Crisis was happening then.......

Of course!

I really get a kick out of how people (on both sides) of the American political spectrum really show their bias in picking out what a terrible job certain presidents did. Makes threads like this entertaining.

Of course, I am never biased, so the same doesn't apply to me.

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by pepper24

All I read is excuses of the Tech Bubble and 9/11 for reasons why a 'fiscal conservative' acted so irresponsibly. You are still avoiding the reality that cutting taxes while increasing spending caused half of the current deficit and ultimately the worst recession/depression since the Great Depression.

I guess you can use the excuse that Obama came into power just as the Credit Crisis was happening then.......

No what I can do is see value in those tax cuts in that they contributed to a robust economy that weathered some very bad times. If the terrorist attacks didn't happen and the 2 wars afterwards Bush would have had balanced budgets again before his next election. By the end of the second the government would have had surpluses long enough to cover the cost of the tax cuts. You can't deny that the economy was working. They had full employment for most of his presidency and thanks to the tax cuts every tax payer kept more of their earnings.

The deficits were caused by the terrorist attacks, the 2 wars, and the creation of homeland security. Unforseen events like these is why America should never have an amendment to the constitution that requires balanced budgets. You can't hamstring the government's ability to respond to crisis.

Obama does get a pass for the economy he had when he came into office. But that was 2 1/2 years and 3 trillion dollars ago.

[pepper24]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

No what I can do is see value in those tax cuts in that they contributed to a robust economy that weathered some very bad times. If the terrorist attacks didn't happen and the 2 wars afterwards Bush would have had balanced budgets again before his next election. By the end of the second the government would have had surpluses long enough to cover the cost of the tax cuts. You can't deny that the economy was working. They had full employment for most of his presidency and thanks to the tax cuts every tax payer kept more of their earnings.

The deficits were caused by the terrorist attacks, the 2 wars, and the creation of homeland security. Unforseen events like these is why America should never have an amendment to the constitution that requires balanced budgets. You can't hamstring the government's ability to respond to crisis.

Obama does get a pass for the economy he had when he came into office. But that was 2 1/2 years and 3 trillion dollars ago.

So Bush gets a pass for the economy when he came in the office due to the Tech Bubble and 9/11 shortly after his term started. But that was 8 years and 5 trillion dollars ago?

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...bt-under-bush/

The Afghan War most would agree was justified. No debate there. The Iraq War (WMDs?) and Homeland Security (Color codes for terror levels?) are debatable though but no matter your view the decision was made. If you move ahead with such dramatic spending you need to offset some or all of that with revenue. At worse case keep the taxes the same, not cut them. Tax cuts is a good idea to help a lagging economy but not with that much spending. You can't have it both ways for the long term benefit of that country. The result is the mess the US is in right now.

Obama has only added to the mess with continued increased spending while keeping the Bush tax cuts. He inherited a bad mess but has to cut spending I think even more drastic and sooner than the recent Congress bill along with increasing taxes over and above the repelling of the Bush tax cuts. He needs to do more. The congress/senate need to do more. It's a scary situation and drastic measures need to be taken. The US will be better in the long run.

[HPLovecraft]

If the terrorist attack and the 2 wars following it didn't happen, Obama would be running a pretty good economy right now.

[jar_e]

Originally Posted by HPLovecraft

If the terrorist attack and the 2 wars following it didn't happen, Obama would be running a pretty good economy right now.

If Obama would have even be voted in...considering Obama's whole campaign was based on "change", I'd be fairly confident the republicans would still be running the country.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by HPLovecraft

If the terrorist attack and the 2 wars following it didn't happen, Obama would be running a pretty good economy right now.

I doubt it.

The bubble happened despite of the wars and the terrorist attacks.

It would have all come crashing down anyways.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by HPLovecraft

If the terrorist attack and the 2 wars following it didn't happen, Obama would be running a pretty good economy right now.

Probably not, the seeds of this economic disaster both in the U.S. and internationally were planted long ago.

Jimmy Carter and the Community reinvestment act lead to the mortgage crisis in 2008.

The American government has had generally badly run and overly expensive social programs since the 70's and it caught up to them.

the American government has allowed themselves to be the lynch pin of world trade for decades and allowed governments in china and other nations to build their economies based on massive trade deficits.

If your going to blame the economic crisis on any president, you can't stop with W or Obama, every president was complicant either through stupid policies or outright inaction.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Probably not, the seeds of this economic disaster both in the U.S. and internationally were planted long ago.

Jimmy Carter and the Community reinvestment act lead to the mortgage crisis in 2008.

A common misconception, but one that isn't true.

From wikipedia (consider the source):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_...housing_bubble

More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages came from private lending institutions in 2006[7] and share of subprime loans insured by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac also decreased as the bubble got bigger (from a high of insuring 48 percent to insuring 24 percent of all subprime loans in 2006).[7] The Community Reinvestment Act also only affected one out of the top 25 subprime lenders.[7]

In 2008, Federal Reserve Governor Randall Kroszner, said the CRA wasn’t to blame for the subprime mortgage crisis, stating that "first, only a small portion of subprime mortgage originations are related to the CRA. Second, CRA-related loans appear to perform comparably to other types of subprime loans. Taken together… we believe that the available evidence runs counter to the contention that the CRA contributed in any substantive way to the current mortgage crisis,". Only 6% of subprime loans were handed out by CRA-covered lenders to lower income people (the people the CRA is responsible for, CRA-covered banks can technically lend subprime loans to anyone).[8] Others, such as Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Sheila Bair,[9] and Ellen Seidman of the New America Foundation[10] also argue that the CRA was not to blame for the crisis.

Emphasis added.

[HPLovecraft]

Originally Posted by Azure

I doubt it.

The bubble happened despite of the wars and the terrorist attacks.

It would have all come crashing down anyways.

Probably, but those things certainly pushed its schedule ahead a bit. Obama could very well be having a presidency moving along swimmingly right now, with the economic woes coming at a later date with a later president. Now, like jar_e said, if Obama would have even been elected at all is another story . . .

Either way, my point was that if other presidents can get passes for things that happened by pretending it'd be okay if they didn't (Calgaryborn's post), Obama should too!