The mess that Obama "inherited"

**frogsrangers** · 06-19-12, 09:23 AM

You make a lot of good points, but Bush could have put his foot down and not signed so many ridiculous spending bills that the democrats put on his desk. I think Bush was more concerned about his legacy and approval than doing what was right when it came to matters such as TARP, Auto Bailout, Stimulus, etc. Also the establishment Republicans played their role by not doing what they could to stop it also. A lot of establishment Republicans voted for the crap too.

**Brock Landers** · 06-19-12, 09:23 AM

whats your angle guy?

**TC Woods** · 06-19-12, 09:29 AM

Originally posted by no gnu taxes

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.

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:

The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77 The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5% The Unemployment rate was 4.6%

George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB GROWTH Remember the day...

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!

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!

Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie - starting in 2001 because it was financially risky for the US economy.

And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? OBAMA And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie? OBAMA and the Democrat Congress So when someone tries to blame Bush...

REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007.... THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!" Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democrat Party.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 January 20th.

**MartinBlank** · 06-19-12, 09:48 AM

So let me get this right.

The Democrats/Obama get the blame for this mess because they controlled both houses.

How the hell do you explain the rise in spending, and the creation the expanded medicare program Bush signed into law?

I'm curious about another thing. Did the Dems hold Bush down and make him sign some piece of legislature that he disagreed with?

This mess is both parties fault. They both overspend, they both squander tax dollars. The names change, but not the game.

**LostBankroll** · 06-19-12, 09:50 AM

Bush did it god damnit. A black man doesnt have the wits to crumble this nation.....

**crustyme** · 06-19-12, 10:06 AM

what really caused the meltdown....

1. bush signs into law "american dream downpayment act of 2003" which helped the poor buy homes they could not afford.

President Bush signed into law the American Dream Downpayment Act of 2003, which will help approximately 40,000 families a year with their down payment and closing costs, and further strengthen America’s housing market.

The biggest barrier to homeownership is often accumulating funds for a down payment. In June 2002, President Bush proposed the American Dream Downpayment Fund to help low-income families take much-needed steps to own a home of their own, and announced the goal of increasing the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million before the end of the decade.

2. bush appointed s.e.c. deregulates the "net capital rule" in 2004 which allows the top 5 investment banks to take on trillions in bad subprime debt.

In loosening the capital rules, which are supposed to provide a buffer in turbulent times, the agency also decided to rely on the firms’ own computer models for determining the riskiness of investments, essentially outsourcing the job of monitoring risk to the banks themselves.

Over the following months and years, each of the firms would take advantage of the looser rules. At Bear Stearns, the leverage ratio — a measurement of how much the firm was borrowing compared to its total assets — rose sharply, to 33 to 1. In other words, for every dollar in equity, it had $33 of debt. The ratios at the other firms also rose significantly.

nytimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/business/03sec.html

**TheMoneyShot** · 06-19-12, 10:14 AM

So, you're sticking up for Obama? Um... no one told Obama to ACCEPT THE JOB. He wanted the job. And if you want the job... Fuking perform! I'm tired of these Obama ass kissers. It's like anything in life... if you want the job... PERFORM!!!

You are judged on you performance... not what you inherited. His performance... sucks.

**Extra Innings** · 06-19-12, 10:22 AM

More like the American ideal that everyone should own a home regardless of income, inherently Democrat.

**TC Woods** · 06-19-12, 10:24 AM

Originally posted by TheMoneyShot

So, you're sticking up for Obama? Um... no one told Obama to ACCEPT THE JOB. He wanted the job. And if you want the job... Fuking perform! I'm tired of these Obama ass kissers. It's like anything in life... if you want the job... PERFORM!!!

You are judged on you performance... not what you inherited. His performance... sucks.

Get a clue, yer an idiot

**Extra Innings** · 06-19-12, 10:27 AM

Originally posted by crustyme

what really caused the meltdown....

1. bush signs into law "american dream downpayment act of 2003" which helped the poor buy homes they could not afford.

President Bush signed into law the American Dream Downpayment Act of 2003, which will help approximately 40,000 families a year with their down payment and closing costs, and further strengthen America’s housing market.

The biggest barrier to homeownership is often accumulating funds for a down payment. In June 2002, President Bush proposed the American Dream Downpayment Fund to help low-income families take much-needed steps to own a home of their own, and announced the goal of increasing the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million before the end of the decade.

2. bush appointed s.e.c. deregulates the "net capital rule" in 2004 which allows the top 5 investment banks to take on trillions in bad subprime debt.

In loosening the capital rules, which are supposed to provide a buffer in turbulent times, the agency also decided to rely on the firms’ own computer models for determining the riskiness of investments, essentially outsourcing the job of monitoring risk to the banks themselves.

Over the following months and years, each of the firms would take advantage of the looser rules. At Bear Stearns, the leverage ratio — a measurement of how much the firm was borrowing compared to its total assets — rose sharply, to 33 to 1. In other words, for every dollar in equity, it had $33 of debt. The ratios at the other firms also rose significantly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/business/03sec.html

**crustyme** · 06-19-12, 10:27 AM

Originally posted by TheMoneyShot

So, you're sticking up for Obama? Um... no one told Obama to ACCEPT THE JOB. He wanted the job. And if you want the job... Fuking perform! I'm tired of these Obama ass kissers. It's like anything in life... if you want the job... PERFORM!!!

You are judged on you performance... not what you inherited. His performance... sucks.

his performance "sucks"?

please provide examples of his "sucking."

**Extra Innings** · 06-19-12, 10:34 AM

Source Your Graphs, we can all post graphs....mine are from Forbes

1. The unemployment rate remains above 9 percent according to the Labor Department data released on Friday.This is about two and a half percentage points higher than Obama promised if we adopted the failed stimulus.

**Extra Innings** · 06-19-12, 10:34 AM

**Extra Innings** · 06-19-12, 10:35 AM

**Extra Innings** · 06-19-12, 10:35 AM

**Extra Innings** · 06-19-12, 10:38 AM

This graph shows the unemployment rate for women age 20 and older from January 1992 to March 2012.

**no gnu taxes** · 06-19-12, 10:45 AM

As always, it's the cover-up that sinks people. Liberals are working overtime to cover up their role in the mortgage meltdown. Not only did they block attempts to reform Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before they could drag down our economy, but liberals also abused the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), turning it into a vehicle for directing loans to unqualified homebuyers. The left knows that whoever shapes public understanding of what caused today's economic crisis can shape America's politics -- and its future -- for a great many years to come. Thus, they're pushing the notion that too little government regulation was at fault.

If the country buys this idea, liberals can enact a carbon-copy of FDR's response to the Great Depression, building a larger, more activist and ever-more-controlling federal government. They can exploit the mess by establishing a conventional wisdom that more government is the solution, rather than understanding how big government is a root cause of the current financial meltdown. Claiming it all sprung from a lack of regulation is a half-truth, and a Yiddish proverb says a half truth is a whole lie. Over-regulation opened the money spigot by requiring lenders to make poorly underwritten loans. Under-regulation then allowed politicians to exploit that. Although greed and dishonesty among both borrowers and lenders had major roles, the CRA and the GSEs were at the heart of what happened, setting up the now-toppled dominoes of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and others. Over-regulation through CRA, aided by HUD, became a huge problem and, alas, wasn't even addressed in the multi-billion dollar bailout. The Clinton Treasury Department's tough new regulations in 1995 compelled the banks to engage in far-riskier lending practices or receive a failing CRA grade.

To avoid an "F" from the CRA, which could jeopardize their viability, the banks were pressured to direct hundreds of billions of dollars in high-risk mortgages to inner-city and low-income neighborhoods. Moreover, under CRA pressure, banks would "hire" radical, non-profit groups like ACORN to find them customers. Once trillions of dollars began to flow, politicians and lobbyists tapped into this stream, and so did left-wing activist groups. According to George Mason University's Russell Roberts, the CRA was buttressed by other new regulations during the Clinton Administration. As Roberts writes, "For 1996, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gave Fannie and Freddie an explicit target -- 42 percent of their mortgage financing had to go to borrowers with income below the median in their area. The target increased to 50 percent in 2000 and 52 percent in 2005. For 1996, HUD required that 12 percent of all mortgage purchases by Fannie and Freddie be "special affordable" loans, typically to borrowers with income less than 60 percent of their area's median income. That number was increased to 20 percent in 2000 and 22 percent in 2005. The 2008 goal was to be 28 percent." The banks were kept from rebelling by using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's deep pockets to buy these poor-quality loans and take them off the banks' books. Under-regulation of the GSEs -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- allowed the money stream to widen and keep flowing. There has always been an implicit understanding that taxpayers would cover GSE losses and this enabled them to attract money and pour it into the CRA-induced sub-prime market.

The Bush Administration had warned about this for years. Fannie and Freddie, however, could skim enough to pay for political protection, plus pay sky-high executive salaries and bonuses to well-connected political figures. Over the past decade, Fannie and Freddie combined to spend a reported $200 million on lobbying and campaign contributions. Now bailing them out may cost taxpayers $200 billion directly, and far more indirectly. The circle of political back-scratching centered around the theme of affordable housing, which the GSEs marketed heavily. Politicians wanted housing for low-income and poor credit risks, so they used Fannie and Freddie to further that objective, and the GSEs responded with campaign help for those politicians. In return, politicians resisted reforms. This was demonstrated at a 2004 House hearing, where Rep. Maxine Waters (D.-Calif.) denounced attempts to stiffen oversight and regulation of this duo "so as not to impede their affordable housing mission, a mission that has seen innovation flourish, from desktop underwriting to 100 percent loans." "Desktop underwriting" meant undocumented loans. No proof of income or credit history required. And zero down payment. Members of both parties were involved in protecting the system. But liberal Democrats were the dominant force. Recently, House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told The Boston Globe, "[Republicans'] failure to regulate sensibly ... endangered the economy and ... burdened it with bad stuff.... Their own philosophy blew up in their face. They were so extreme in their insistence that there be no government intervention that they have wound up provoking far more government intervention than the Democrats ever would have." But Frank is covering up his own role because he sang a far different tune in 2003, when the Bush Administration and many Republicans (including Sen. John McCain) tried to require Fannie and Freddie to comply with Securities and Exchange Commission regulations and other additional oversight requirements. Treasury Secretary John Snow, in fact, had specifically warned Congress that Fannie and Freddie needed a new supervisory structure so that both institutions would "maintain capital and reserves sufficient to support the risks that arise or exist in its business." Rep. Frank was unconcerned. He told a hearing, "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not in a crisis." Rather, he said, they were "fundamentally sound," and criticisms of them were unjustified exaggerations and "disaster scenarios." Then he confirmed why: "The more pressure there is [to regulate] then the less I think we see in terms of affordable housing" He wanted to continue both the giveaway train supplying mortgages to those who couldn't afford them and the gravy train for politicians. This appealed to liberals and in particular to the Congressional Black Caucus, which received six-figure support from both Fannie and Freddie in 2007. The GSEs' major campaign largesse went to well-placed friends in key positions. The top six from 1998 thru 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics: Sen. Chris Dodd (D.-Conn.) $165,400 Sen. Barack Obama (D.-Ill.) $126,349 Sen. John Kerry (D.-Mass.) $111,000 Sen. Robert Bennett (R.-Utah) $107,999 Rep. Spencer Bachus (R.-Ala.) $103,300 Rep. Roy Blunt (R.-Mo.) $ 96,950 And almost everyone in Congress got something.
The GSEs lobbied hard, too. Their combined lobbying budget averaged $17 million a year. As described by Rep. Chris Shays (R.-Conn.), "They hire every lobbyist they can possibly hire. They hire some people to lobby and they hire other people not to lobby so the opposition cannot hire them." But friends at the top were not enough. They needed them in every community, too. The Community Reinvestment Act guaranteed a steady stream of low-quality, but highly political, loans. Congress passed the CRA in 1977 to combat "redlining," a lending practice that prevented loans to minority communities. Clinton Administration regulations in the '90s added teeth to CRA, requiring banks to show compliance with meeting low-income loan targets or face civil actions that could assess a $500,000 penalty for each violation. Banks were "encouraged" to comply by hiring community groups (including ACORN) who contracted with financiers to steer low-income applicants to their institutions. As the Manhattan Institute's Howard Husock wrote in 2000: "The Senate Banking Committee has estimated that, as a result of CRA, $9.5 billion so far has gone to pay for services and salaries of the nonprofit groups involved." The left created the system that paid its community organizers very handsomely, thanks to the regulations on the financial community.

As The Heritage Foundation's J.D. Foster recently noted, "While a worthy cause, the net effect [of CRA] is often to encourage loans at lower credit standards and to encourage people to buy houses they really cannot afford." The net effect has also brought the economy to the brink of disaster. But unless the American public is told, re-told, and educated about how we got here, there won't be reform of the bailed-out-but-still-alive GSEs nor of the CRA. Then we would witness more big government, giving us far more help than we can afford.

**TC Woods** · 06-19-12, 10:48 AM

Last post on this thread.... what a bunch of imbeciles

**Extra Innings** · 06-19-12, 10:51 AM

Originally posted by TC Woods

Last post on this thread.... what a bunch of imbeciles

Says the guy who supports blaming someone who was in office 4 years ago

**crustyme** · 06-19-12, 10:53 AM

Originally posted by Extra Innings

Source Your Graphs, we can all post graphs....mine are from Forbes

1. The unemployment rate remains above 9 percent according to the Labor Department data released on Friday.This is about two and a half percentage points higher than Obama promised if we adopted the failed stimulus.

daniel j mitchell = forbes?

**crustyme** · 06-19-12, 10:55 AM

Originally posted by Extra Innings

12.7% when obama entered office.

**Extra Innings** · 06-19-12, 10:58 AM

Originally posted by crustyme

daniel j mitchell = forbes?

Here's the link smartass....he "contributes" (i.e. works for Forbes, his articles are reviewed and approved by Forbes). Are you suggesting you could write an article and have it posted up on Forbes

Obama's Failure On Jobs: Four Damning Charts

http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2011/09/06/obamas-failure-on-jobs-four-damning-charts/

President Obama may have a buddy-buddy relationship with big labor, but he's no friend to ordinary workers. Here are four damning pieces of evidence. 1. The unemployment rate remains above 9 percent according to the Labor Department data released on Friday. This is about two and a half percentage points higher than [...]

**Smoke** · 06-19-12, 10:58 AM

crusty wins

End thread

**Extra Innings** · 06-19-12, 11:03 AM

Originally posted by crustyme

12.7% when obama entered office.

Your numbers as well as my numbers mean nothing....half the fuckin' Country is out of the workforce

**Extra Innings** · 06-19-12, 11:07 AM

**crustyme** · 06-19-12, 11:08 AM

**crustyme** · 06-19-12, 11:15 AM

Originally posted by Extra Innings

Your numbers as well as my numbers mean nothing....half the fuckin' Country is out of the workforce

yeah because bush losing 4.4 million jobs (most since the great depression) as obama entered office had no carryover effect.

**PickWinnerAllDay** · 06-19-12, 11:17 AM

Obama has doubled the amount of individuals receiving food stamps.

Good job. Just what we need, more lazy teet suckers.

**Extra Innings** · 06-19-12, 11:19 AM

Originally posted by crustyme

yeah because bush losing 4.4 million jobs (most since the great depression) as obama entered office had no carryover effect.

And each job Obama "saved" cost the taxpayers $230,000, what's your point?

**PickWinnerAllDay** · 06-19-12, 11:19 AM

Originally posted by crustyme

yeah because bush losing 4.4 million jobs (most since the great depression) as obama entered office had no carryover effect.

Losing 4.4 million jobs made 20 million more go on welfare? Only because Obama expanded welfare programs that were already extremely abused.

**crustyme** · 06-19-12, 11:19 AM

**PickWinnerAllDay** · 06-19-12, 11:21 AM

We all get the Obama support crusty. You are one of the 47,000,000 Americans on welfare. We get it. You love your EBT card.

**TC Woods** · 06-19-12, 11:27 AM

What's hilarious about all of this rhetoric is these clowns want to blame Obama when in fact, all of these hi level politicians are corrupt. I may not agree with things Obama has done but currently, there are no better options.

If you honestly think, the POTUS can fix all of the shit by himself and/or you think Rommney is the answer, you are a bigger moron than I originally thought.

**PickWinnerAllDay** · 06-19-12, 11:33 AM

Originally posted by TC Woods

What's hilarious about all of this rhetoric is these clowns want to blame Obama when in fact, all of these hi level politicians are corrupt. I may not agree with things Obama has done but currently, there are no better options.

If you honestly think, the POTUS can fix all of the shit by himself and/or you think Rommney is the answer, you are a bigger moron than I originally thought.

Look at their careers. Who do you really think understands the economy better? If you say Obama over Romney there, you are the moron and should quit throwing insults around.