bcspace and droopy need to hold onto their nads, because this is going to hurt:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/11/ ... 9-deficit/Don’t Blame Obama for Bush’s 2009 Deficit
Some critics are lambasting President Obama for record deficits. This is not a productive line of attack, largely because it puts the focus on the wrong variable. America’s fiscal problem is excessive government spending, and deficits are merely a symptom of that underlying disease. Moreover, if deficits are perceived as the problem, that means both spending restraint and higher taxes are solutions. The political class, needless to say, will choose the latter approach 99 percent of the time. A higher tax burden, however, simply means that debt-financed spending is replaced by tax-financed spending, which is akin to jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, or vice-versa.
In addition to being theoretically misguided, critics sometimes blame Obama for things that are not his fault. Listening to a talk radio program yesterday, the host asserted that Obama tripled the budget deficit in his first year. This assertion is understandable, since the deficit jumped from about $450 billion in 2008 to $1.4 trillion in 2009. As this chart illustrates, with the Bush years in green, it appears as if Obama’s policies have led to an explosion of debt.
But there is one rather important detail that makes a big difference. The chart is based on the assumption that the current administration should be blamed for the 2009 fiscal year. While this makes sense to a casual observer,
it is largely untrue. The 2009 fiscal year began October 1, 2008, nearly
four months before Obama took office. The budget for the entire fiscal year was largely set in place
while Bush was in the White House. So if we update the chart to show the Bush fiscal years in green, we can see that Obama is partly right in claiming that he inherited a mess (though Obama actually deserves a small share of the blame for Bush’s last deficit since earlier this year he pushed through both an “omnibus” spending bill and the so-called stimulus bill that increased FY2009 spending).
It should go without saying that this post is not an argument for Obama’s fiscal policy. The current President promised change, but he is continuing the wasteful and profligate policies of his big-spending predecessor. That is where critics should be focusing their attention.
==========================
So there you have it, straight from Cato!
Now another thing I want to touch upon is the unemployment rate which we can completrely attribute to Bush. Unemployment rate change during first two years in office:
Republican: Gerald Ford, 5.1 up to 7.9
Democrat: Jimmy Carter, 7.5 down to 5.9
Republican: Reagan, 7.5 up to 10.4
Republican: George Bush, 5.4 up to 6.4 (reaching as high as 7.8)
Democrat: Bill Clinton, 7.3 down to 5.6 (averaging 3.9 in his last year)
Republican: GWB, 4.2 up to 5.8 (reaching 7.4 during his last month in office)
Democrat: Barack Obama, 8.2 - ?
Fact: Obama was left with the highest unemployment rate since 1992, when George Bush Sr. dumped a crappy economy on Clinton. And if you look at it on a graph you can clearly see the sharp trend skyrocket upwards over the previous year. Since April 2008 unemployment rates have increased monthly accordingly: 5.0, 5.4, 5.5, 5.8, 6.1, 6.2, 6.6, 6.9, 7.4, 7.7, 8.2 (<--Obama becomes President), 8.6, 8.9, 9.4, 9.7, 9.8, 10.1, 10.0, 10.0, 9.7.
The reason I focus on unemployment is because this is the reason Obama is still spending money: to try to slam the brakes on escalating unemployment rates. That is the whole strategy as he said from the outset - people can't spend money if they aren't working - and it seems to be working given the recent drop from 10.1 to 9.7. This is nothing to sneeze at, and in fact is a clear sign of a first step to economic recovery since the rate of increase is finally broken for the first time
in 20 consecutive Bush months. I think it is rather impressive actually, if you consider he managed to stunt the escalating unemployment rate after only six months in office.
The fact is Obama is doing the right thing when he is putting economic growth first, which begins with jobs (which requires government stimulus, spending) and placing the deficit on the backburner as he should. Here is an article from June that discusses the error of focusing on a deficit during a recession:
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2009/06/ ... /tech/htww