It's Not Bush's Fault : Let's dispatch some misconceptions about our 43rd president

American Thinker ^ | 09/16/2012 | Ben Voth

[Soul of the South]

The Financial Modernization Act of 1999 repealing Glass Steagal was sponsored by three Republicans. It passed by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate. In fact, more Democrats voted against the bill than Republicans. Both parties wanted to give a big bone to Wall Street. The Republicans deserve just as much blame as Clinton.

George W. Bush appointed money printing Ben Bernanke to chairmanship of the Federal Reserve.

G W Bush appointed the Chairman of Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury and abdicated responsibility for dealing with the 2008 crisis to him. Paulson put the interests of the big Wall Street banks ahead of the citizens, bailing them out with trillions in taxpayer money and Fed printed money. The other option would have been to let the FDIC back depositors and let the big bank shareholders, bond holders, and management, suffer the consequences of the speculation. Paulson and Bernanke also gave taxpayer backed lifelines to major foreign banks. Four years later the big banks remain on Federal Reserve life support yet are paying big bonuses to executives.

The 2008 financial crisis was brought to the crisis stage by a foreign run on US money market funds. To this day the American people have not been told who was responsible for this external attack. No doubt Bush, the banks, Paulson, and Bernanke knew. Bush should have gone public with the facts and ordered the funds not to redeem the shares if it was truly an attack by foreign governments (China, Russia, Saudi Arabia) or speculators (Soros).

There is much unknown to the people about the 2008 financial crisis and both political parties are part of the coverup. As you pointed out, the statute of limitations will soon expire with zero prosecutions. Shame on Obama but I hear no Republican voices demanding investigations or prosecutions. We don’t even hear the Republicans demanding the prosecution of Jon Corzine, the perfect villian for a corruption scandal. Both parties are protecting the Federal Reserve and Wall Street Banks.

[Intolerant in NJ]

This article talks about Bush’s bailout of GM (bondholders were screwed) as if it were something praise-worthy...I wouldn't say that the way it was handled was "praise-worthy", but with hindsight I think TARP (including the auto bailout) was a smart move - much of it has been repaid and it did help thaw the national credit freeze brought on by the collapse of the housing and derviative market which were overheated because of the 'rats attempts to give free houses to the poor at taxpayer expense....
Bush signed the loan approval to the auto makers in December - it was administered by Obama after he came into office - instead of paying off GM creditors as the law mandated, the Obama crew shifted most of the money to refund the union retirement and health plans - that's how the bond-holders got screwed, and one of many reasons Obama should be in jail now - I believe that in return for the loans, the government received mucho shares of GM stock, which is held by the Treasury now(that's probably the business about the money being repaid). Only trouble is the stock is now worth only about half its original price, about $30 billion. In fact there was a story out today that GM wants the Treasury to sell the stock, but the Treasury is reluctant to sell because it would take a big loss - that's why GM isn't out of the woods yet, and why Obama shouldn't get credit for saving it - Bush initiated what could have been an effective remedy had Obama not hijacked the funds and sent them as a payoff to his political buddies instead of to those rightful creditors, which would have allowed the company to continue business effectively......

[Bellflower]

I copied this from a blogger somewhere on the net, but unfortunately I didn’t get the blogger’s name:

The Mess and how Obama inherited it – read it slowly and let it sink in...
This tells the story of why Bush looked so bad at the end of his term. Don’t just skim over this, it’s not long, but 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 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! It started with Jimmy Carter and his Housing and Community Investment Act of 1977, broadened by Bill Clinton, enforced by Janet Reno, then sent over the cliff by Frank & Dodd.

Oh, Obama, as an attorney in Chicago working on behalf of ACORN, successfully sued Citibank for loan discrimination under Reno’s tenure! 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.