Change in Total Private Employment (in thousands), Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Update: Click here for the most recent jobs statistics.
I posted an article last month that compared the unemployment rate under President George W. Bush with the unemployment rate under President Obama at that time. I felt compelled to publish this article because some left-leaning sites were comparing Obama’s first two years and three months in office with Bush’s last and worst economic year (the above chart shows the most recent incarnation of this narrative).
In light of yesterday’s jobs numbers, some left-leaning blogs continue to use Bush’s last year as a foil to Obama’s two years and four months in office.
In April, the private sector added 268,000 jobs in the fourteenth consecutive month of private sector job growth. This is good news, though the media certainly seems to be portraying it far more positively than it really is. For instance, The New York Times reported that this number constituted the highest number of private sector jobs added in the last five years.
Why five years?
Because if one were to choose another round-number period such as ten years, it would be the 9th best month.
Pretty darn convenient, isn’t it?
The bad news is that the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate actually ticked up in April from a whopping 8.8% to an even worse 9.0%. This number is 1.7 percentage points worse than President Bush’s last full month in office in December 2008.
Unemployment Rate, Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Furthermore, the unemployment rate only accounts for the percentage of the unemployed who are actively seeking employment. It does not include people who have given up on finding employment.
Both the Bush and Obama presidencies have been marked by a steady decline in the labor force participation rate. The labor force participation rate measures the number of people in the labor force as a percentage of the total working-age population.
Labor Force Participation Rate, Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Therefore, the unemployment situation is even worse than it appears, because it does not account for people who have been forced to exit the labor market because they can not find jobs.
Another negative data point is last week’s rise in jobless claims. According to The New York Times, jobless claims in the week ending April 30th represented an eight-month high.
Putting the Numbers into Perspective
President Bush’s overall record continues to look far better than President Obama’s to date. Over President Bush’s presidency, the private sector created a net 141,000 jobs (my last post reported 188,000, but it did not include January 2001 data). Surprisingly, this number includes the 3.78 million private sector jobs lost in 2008.
Change in Total Private Employment (in thousands), Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
In contrast, under President Obama’s administration, the private sector has still lost a net 2.96 million private sector jobs.
Again, the point of this argument is not to assess blame on either administrations’ policy. It simply puts the left’s claims into perspective.
For every job that the private sector created under George W. Bush, the private sector eliminated ~21 jobs under Barack Obama. While the private sector job outlook has improved recently, the economy still must create 2.96 million private sector jobs to break even. Until then, it is disingenuous for the left to claim that President Obama’s economic policies are a resounding success.
Reflections of a Rational Republican 
Okay, you invited me over here to try to make trouble on this post! 🙂
For instance, The New York Times reported that this number constituted the highest number of private sector jobs added in the last five years.
Why five years?
Well Sean, I’d imagine it’s these last five years because the story is about the financial crisis and jobless crisis we are presently in. The previous five years aren’t part of that story.
Also, you claim in the first part of this post, that the NY Times “seems to be portraying it far more positively than it really is” but then further down cite the NY Times as reporting – credibly – the bad numbers on new jobless claims.
Over President Bush’s presidency, the private sector created a net 141,000 jobs . I’ll bring Bill Clinton’s eight years in here – 22 million jobs in 8 years. Compared to that, Bush’s record looks pretty pathetic. Just sayin’. Or am I misreading what you’ve said here?
By the way, Sean, I don’t think anyone is claiming Obama’s economic policies are “a resounding sucess”. All we’re seeing is the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishing figures showing that job growth in the private sector is headed in the right direction after a long time going in the wrong direction.
I screwed up the italics but I imagine you can figure it out.
Yup!
If you print out the unemployment rates for each month rather than graphing them the contrast is, to me, even more dramatic. Month after month for year after year the Bush rates are below six percent, many months below what was once considered structural unemployment. Of course, you have to have actually watched a newscast or perhaps Cspan to have seen the INSANITY that created a wildfire in the housing market and then refused to do even simple things like repealing the mark to market rules. Then, you would have to understand what banks do and how they are restrained to know how these things worked together to almost collapse the world financial system. Armed with that knowledge it’s easy to see that Bush was, if anything, the HERO that kept the collapse from being total when he finally gave up on attempts to get Congress to reign in Fannie and Freddie and he and Paulson arranged placing them into conservatorship. Earlier would have been better, but later would have been fatal. Earlier…would he have been able to get all the necessary parties to pull their heads out of the holes in the ground and face reality?? I don’t know, but I doubt it.
Stephen,
I agree with you. TARP single-handedly saved the country from an economic meltdown. I don’t agree with rewarding failure, but when it threatens the integrity of the global financial system, you have to do whatever stops the bleeding. Moreover, the government actually made a profit from TARP, which is more than I can say for the GM bailout.
Republicans have continually had a problem with the auto bailout, mostly I believe, based on the consistent concern with union jobs.which they try so hard to eliminate
The success was the saving of jobs, not just union jobs, but all those with ties to the auto industry, including the smaller business that provide the materials required.
Don’t see Bush as a hero, he may not be the fall guy I tend to see him as, While conservatives point to the Freddie and Fanny funds, I look to the elimination and loosening the banking rules….Prior to the Reagan/Bush era, they wouldn’t have been involved in many of the areas they were.
You also me to believe that the banks completely unknowingly didn’t understand what they were doing.
I am reminded of a full page ad the largest local bank placed in the newspaper. The essence was ……”we are solvent, Our lending standards have not changed, we eliminated “red lining” before the law required it. As a result you can trust we and here and will continue to be here or the needs of our customers and community”…..
How is it that these local banks knew what was happening and the largest, with supposedly the smartest didn’t?
Why aren’t they? Surely, this crisis began as early as 2001 when Greenspan lowered interest rates or during the Clinton Administration when the Glass Steagal Act was repealed.
You got me. 😉
The hazards of quickly writing and submitting a post…
You are not claiming this, but other blogs have in the past.
Honestly, I linked to you because I wanted to drive traffic to your site. 😉
My only point is that while it’s a good trend, we still need a massive improvement to make up for what was lost and these numbers are only moderately making up for initial losses.
The statistics support your point here.
Unemployment numbers are lagging indicators. They, and the problems that created them, didn’t suddenly spring into existence the day Obama was elected- but that is exactly what the Republicans seem to want us to believe-,just has they want us to believe in supply-side economics even though it has ever been shown to work- NEVER, and you cannot point to one example in our country’s history where it has.
Just once I would like to hear a Republican say ” We screwed up- let’s try to fix it” iinstead of “It was really all the Democrats’ fault.”
Sure, they are lagging indicators, but just how long are the Democrats going to keep blaming Bush for the country’s economic woes?
Obama has been in office for over 2 and a half years, and the country’s unemployment situation is getting worse, not better. At some point, Democrats need to accept their share of the blame. They continue to make empty promises they know they cannot keep such as providing Medicare or Social Security in the same manner for my generation, and continue to refuse to cut spending. Republicans should agree to a tax increase on all Americans as well, not just the population that already pays most of the taxes.
To blame President Bush for today’s 9.2% unemployment 2.5 years after he left office is disingenuous in the extreme. President Obama’s economic policies have failed. Period.
No they started when them Democrats took control of congress in the 2006 elections and there has not been a budget since
The truth is that these comparisons are absolutely meaningless because the fundamentals have changed so tremendously. It’s really about comparing apples with oranges. I mean, the economy has changed dramatically during the crisis. It’s not the same economy. One can argue that the economy was on an unsustainable path during Bush years, so his record in job creation is fake. In the same way Obama inherited an economy battered by the crisis, so he was really rowing upstream with employment. It’s immaterial what time frame is used as a basis for such comparisons, the very idea of doing this is wrong
Nobody,
I agree. Some on the left keep comparing the two presidents though, so I just wanted to present the full data set to be fair.
well if we’re really going to be fair, then let’s compare Bush’s 8 years to Obama’s 8 years, in January 2017. (and we will be doing that.)
I am not a statistician, but if I were I would probably say that the sample for Obama is too small – 2 years and a bit of change – to compare to Bush’s 8 years. Especially when you consider the first year of Obama’s term highly skews the results, especially when there’s only one other year of results to look at. Only I’d use bigger words derived from Greek to say all that.
Your comparison of Bush’s 8 years to Obama’s 2 years sounds fair, but it really isn’t a fair comparison. Imagine flipping a coin twice, getting tails both times and then proceeding to claim there’s something wrong with the coin – it always comes up tails!
Your points are all fair. The closer the time periods are, the better the comparison. Unfortunately two years are all that are available.
Yes, it makes sense not only compare both Bush and Obama at a full eight-years, but to remember Obama is forced to climb out of the hole of a recession (possible depression) Bush left behind. This is no minor economic difficulty.
In the worst economic crisis since 1929 (also based on lessez faire GOP policy), all bets are off that anyone of any party could generate the appearance of normalcy. That Obama managed to avert the yawning prospect of depression is a huge achievement, in and of itself– especially without the full Keynesian stimulus the country needed.
And guess which party opposed the stimulus? The same party taking an oath to obstruct Obama, whenever possible. That GOP grudge marks it clearly as the most unpatriotic, mercenary and toxic influence in American politics for decades.
“Yes, it makes sense not only compare both Bush and Obama at a full eight-years, but to remember Obama is forced to climb out of the hole of a recession (possible depression) Bush left behind. This is no minor economic difficulty.”
I completely agree. That said, one would expect to see some, or any sign of progress. Instead, the President added $4 trillion to the national debt (which he considered “unpatriotic” three years ago), with nothing to show for it but a higher unemployment rate than when he started.
“especially without the full Keynesian stimulus the country needed.”
I have always found this Keynesian argument amusing. When Keynesian economic policy falters, the Keynesian always retorts, “It wasn’t enough!” The country spent near $1 trillion on stimulus. In your opinion, how much would have been required? $2 trillion? $5 trillion?
“And guess which party opposed the stimulus?”
Some Republicans and Democrats both opposed it. Yet it passed.
The Democratic Party behaved in a similar manner during the Bush years. This is just more of the same old petty partisan politics.
I’m of the opinion that practically ANY President during that time would have seen enormous job growth, whether they be Democrat, Republican, or even “Nader”.
We literally invented an industry – Networking, the Internet, and the World-Wide Web – which I have to think was responsible for that job growth during the Reagan and Clinton years either directly or indirectly. I think that’s what created jobs, not the Presidents of the time.
I get that Presidents influence policies that make the hiring decision easier or more difficult but to say that one President actually “creates” more jobs or not, and to give them credit for such, is inaccurate.
That being said, however, showing gained/lost government jobs vs. non-government jobs would be a better comparison to show direct Presidential influence on the job market, no? Or business taxes and private sector gains/losses?
Excellent observation and suggestion. The charts, in and of themselves, do not wholly reflect a President’s impact on jobs. Clinton was President during the Internet boom, then the bust destroyed more than the charts above even HINT at. Wealth was lost, and jobes that had no real security in them were also lost, because the Internet startups which were so speculative and had no profits had to close their doors, taking away jobs and investor capital, then dragging the rest of the economy down with it.
Then, the economy floundered while we suffered 9-11 while trying to find a new direction in the economy. All the while, the insidious regulations allowing people who couldn’t afford housing were LEAPING into them, setting the stage for the last year of Bush’s 2nd term to be atrocious. It was not bush-caused, but rather Democrat caused, for it was they in Congress who as far back as Carter, started putting the house of cards into place for this housing bust. Wrongly sold as being compassion for the poor, ability to pay a mortgage was all but ignored by the advocates in power of Congress to stack the cards even higher.
And now we are in the aftermath, slowly crawling out from the rubble of that collapse, and in *spite* of Obama’s desire to turn this country into a very redistributionist place, the desire of its citizens to keep on keeping on is showing a bit of resilience, even in the headwinds of governmental mismanagement, such as restrictions on drilling, the government takeover of health care (Except for Maine, Nevada and THOUSANDS of groups who were granted waivers!), the SUPER-fast spending of money we don’t have, and the list goes on.
My point is that there are myriad factors causing the chart ebb and flow captured above, so trying to tie it to a President is only a small part of the explanation. Social engineering efforts by the Democrats is IMHO the largest factor behind the economic hard times we are now in. Congress’ actions in the past were the largest factor in creating the chart directions seen above, and the downtrends were in large part caused by a Democrat-controlled Congress. Remember, the Democrats ran Congress in the last 2 years of G.W. Bush’s 2nd term. They ran Congress in the first 2 years of Obama’s term, too, and ran us headlong into debt. That debt may have caused a slight easing while it was being spent, but now that it is done, it will fade as a positive effect, and the Republicans must, I repeat, MUST win both the House AND the senate, AND the Presidency in order for us to have any shot at getting our fiscal and employment house in order. Then we voters must keep the Republicans from getting lazy or careless, lest we lose any traction we might have a chance to get in saving this country.
Yeah, I agree that unemployment numbers are the result of many complex factors only a minority of which a President can control.
But yet you continue to bash BO for this.
Well, the mistake is to tie a President to these macro economic figures. Clinton and Bush both enjoyed bubble economies that gave low unemployment rates. Bush at the end saw the bubble burst and the worst recession in history begin. I’m not surprised we’re only now starting to see decent job growth, this recession is the worst since the Great Depression. I don’t blame Bush or Obama; it would be like this if McCain was elected President. Now we’re pulling out of it, slowly. Like Reagan in 1984, Obama will probably take credit in 2012 if (as expected) job growth is returning and we’re pulling out of the recession. He won’t deserve it any more or less than Reagan, but its like a team always blaming the quarterback. (Also note that the Reagan years were marked by stimulation of the economy through a rapidly growing debt along with falling oil prices — Obama may not have that luxury).
Scott,
I agree. I am just posting the information to include the full record rather than cherry-picking the worst year of the Bush Presidency.
In general I agree that presidents get far too much credit and far too much blame for most everything, including the economy.
However the economic crisis was so grave when Obama took office (how quickly some forget…), that government action was essential to determining what would happen next, much like any grave crisis in our history (Cuban Missile Crisis, 9/11, Iran hostage crisis).
I have little confidence that the alleged maverick John McCain, had he become president, would have been able to resist listening to too much of the same bad advice from the free market fundamentalists in his party that got us into this mess.
Speaking of bad advice, then there would have been the constant shenanigans of his know-nothing bible-banging VP, Sarah Palin, who among other things could have been counted on to:
* run interference for the ideas of the worst wackjobs of the GOP
* grab media time whenever possible, even at the expense of Pres. McCain’s perogative to drive the daily media agenda
* pissing off half the country or more every day by running off her mouth
* and even possibly sending markets crashing with a careless statement
It almost makes me want to believe there’s a God, so that I could get on my knees and thank him that we didn’t get these two clowns.
that is wrong, for all of the supposed (Cuban Missile Crisis, 9/11, Iran hostage crisis) are FOREIGN POLICY ISSUES, not domestic economic issue. Two issues in completely different categories.
I disagree, Derrick. Foreign policy is not in a completely different category. Global events, including 9/11, that was domestic, do impact our economy. We are not alone on an island. So, yes, 9/11, impacted the economy. Cuban missile crisis created unrest and insecurity which is the absolute worst thing for growing and economy. Not only did the Iran Hostage cause uncertianty in the market, it also drove up gas prices which impacted the economy.
Whatever time period you pick for comparison is going to skew the results one way or the other. Surely, Bush benefited from leaving office as the economic collapse was in full swing, or much of the job losses that happened during the obama presidency would have been his.
141K jobs gained by Bush in 8 years is damn anemic especially considering that didn’t come close to keeping up with population growth. Let’s see how obama’s doing at the end of two presidential terms….
meant to write “just as the economic collapse was getting into full swing”
I totally agree. I just wanted to balance the scales.
It is anemic, though the picture looks a heck of a lot better if you exclude 2008’s job losses of 3.78 million. Of course, if I were to exclude that number, I would selectively choosing data.
Interesting assumption. While Obama’s gutsy decision to put boots on the ground in Pakistan will go a long way for his reelection prospects, it still will fall entirely on the state of the economy. In a way, the election could mirror George Bush Senior’s election loss. He had a massive military victory as well and single-handedly erased the stain of America’s experience in Vietnam. Yet the economy was hurting and he ultimately lost the election (plus he had Ross Perot to siphon off votes).
That said, if gasoline prices actually decline this summer (which some reports are indicating), I think the economic could be off to the races. Obama’s key focus must now be on JOBS, JOBS, JOBS. If we are still at 8-9% unemployment on election day, I don’t think he can win. If we are <6%, I think the President would win in a landslide. On time will tell…
unemployment under 6%? Drop 3 full points? not gonna happen in 16 months. That seems a bit unrealistic of a goal to set for any president.
I say if he gets it below 8%, he wins in a walk. The trend is clear at that point even if it’s still high. It would take a formidable opponent to convince voters to change course, and the GOP field is – as we all know – sorely lacking for anybody who can credibly take on Obama. Mike Huckabee made a smart decision.
I agree that getting below 6% is a long shot. I also agree that it is an unrealistic expectation. But voters are not realistic. 8% is a terrible number, so is 7%. If that many folks are still unemployed, people will punish Obama at the polls whether it is his fault or not. However, I agree that he definitely has an advantage over the current field of GOP candidates. That said, if Christie or Daniela enter the race, all bets are off and the election will likely turn on the economy in general and unemployment in particular.
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I’d add that 150,000 jobs a month need to be added to the economy just to keep up with population growth; factor this in and the Obama statistics are even more underwhelming.
All the same, I don’t believe re-implementing Herbert Hoover’s economic plan will resolve the situation.
Don’t forget Smoot Hawley as well. That really destroyed the economy back then. Starting a tariff war was a disaster for everyone.
Funny you attribute the first few months of 2009 to Obama, when clearly it was the effect of Bush’s policies that drove those numbers. (For example, January 2009 – Obama wasn’t even inaugurated until the 21st, but you hang the numbers on him, while yopu leave out GWB’s first month in office until much later in your writing)
“Funny you attribute the first few months of 2009 to Obama, when clearly it was the effect of Bush’s policies that drove those numbers. (For example, January 2009 – Obama wasn’t even inaugurated until the 21st, but you hang the numbers on him”
As I clearly indicated in the post, I am not assessing blame on either policy, I am merely showing the data on the dates each President was in office. The left does just the opposite and pins January on Bush. You have to start somewhere. I suppose the fairest way would be to do the weighted average of the two because each President served some time in January.
January 2001 is included in my numbers for Bush. I did not include them in the post I referenced in this article, to be honest, because I could not figure out how to get older data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which only went back as far as January 2001 (I needed December 2000 to get the change in private sector jobs). Because of this, I clearly indicated that January 2001 data was not included. Since then, I figured out how to get older data and have corrected the numbers in this post to reflect them.
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Is it really logical to compare and judge a President after only a year and 7 months. That rolling turd had been rolling down hill for nearly 8 years and it is only logical that it is going to take a while to stop it. Maybe we should have this conversation in another year or two. Just saying……
Liana,
Thanks for stopping by.
I agree that judging a President after 2 years and 7 months is somewhat premature. That said, the country will be judging him in 1 year and 4 months.
Besides, comparing him to Bush at this point is unfair. That said, the whole point of this post was to put Bush’s full record into perspective at a time when some pundits on the left were cherry-picking his last and worst economic year in office, and comparing it to President Obama’s first two years.
I just wanted to balance the scales a bit.
Obama is the worst failure of a president EVER! All the (expletive deleted) idiots who voted in a guy with no record, no executive experience, and with solid socialist beliefs should be expelled to Cuba. (Expletive deleted) each and every one of you stupid liberal sheep. \
And no I am not a republican.
Liberalism is a life long excuse to not think, to not understand economic reality, and to only spew a string of bumper sticker slogans.
I keep hearing about Bush creating less jobs than Obama. This is misleading, IMHO. If you have a sub 6% unemployment rate under Bush, how much job growth do you expect to have under full employment? When the unemployment rate is as high as 10% in some instances, it’s easy to get a better job creation rate because you are coming from a lower number. If you have 4% unemployment, ( Bush had sub 6% for most of his 8 years), business either has to pay more to attract employee’s, or increase productivity. Under Bush, productivity increased because that was more desirable than taking on a more expensive employee with health benefits. I think most thinking people would much rather go back to the Bush years than where we are now. The housing crash is what caused the trouble, not any Bush policies. In fact Bush tried to intervene in Fannie and Freddie twice as they were cooking the books. If you look at the top 5 recipients of Fannie money, you will see the problem. They even called Bush a racist because Franklin Raines was black and they saw no problems in Fannie. If Bush is to be blamed for today’s problems, his never vetoing spending might be brought into the mix, but if you do that, then Obama has more than doubled that in 3 years vs 8.
Statistics and numbers are useful only so far. Policies that work are what is called for. Rejiggering the tax code would do more for job creation than new spending to your cronies. Business models that don’t work, such as GM, Solyndra, and unions, should die a violent death, but yet we feed them money and expect a different outcome. GM will eventually be back to the trough because they didn’t take a cut in pay. The ruse will again rise that we can’t lose these jobs. The jobs will be lost at some point anyway so why not just pull the band aid off and get it done? The people that can’t afford their house will be kicked out at some point, so why bail them out again?
We went through this before under Carter. Just foreclose and let someone that can buy the house, buy the house. Even GM could be taken over by someone that can run a business and we can continue to make cars in the US, but the broken model must die.
“I keep hearing about Bush creating less jobs than Obama.”
This left wing contention is actually a complete fabrication. If you are generous and blame Bush for job losses in January 2009, more jobs were still lost than gained thus far in Obama’s administration. The 2.5 million that his followers endlessly parrot is based on an economic formula called Okun’s law, which says for every dollar that GDP grows, the unemployment rate decreases by a set percentage — i.e., they are using an equation rather than actual reported economic data.
On all your other points, you are preaching to the choir. I totally agree with you.
Interesting article. I would like to offer another perspective on the employment numbers. One estimate I read recently stated about 8600 jobs are created per every $1billion spent. Correct number? Maybe. It was difficult to find many comparative numbers but I am sure there are more studies. But we know a significant number of jobs as well as spin off technologies are created by military spending. Military spending rose ~10% per year since 2001, while the economy grew at about 2.7%. The problem is that type of spending is not sustainable and neither is war for a stable economy – it is an economic drain over the long haul when you pay all the bills. Winding down the wars therefore also results in job losses. We are seeing this contraction now in the military sector via tech centers in Florida. Unfortunately, it is inevitable. The total cost of the wars will also rise above $4 trillion. History will judge Bush not just on what was done while in office, but on the long term factors. After 8 years in office deficit spending rose enormously and the economy was diving as he exited the White house. I have never considered GW Bush an economic conservative. The Bush legacy will include costly wars (benefiting a few near term), huge deficit spending, government bailouts and a floundering economy. You might note no defense or comparison to either Clinton or Obama.
Edward,
I agree with you here. What I liked least about Bush was that he was not really a fiscal conservative. The Prescription D legislation he supported is a key example.
You could do the same numbers trick over a longer time period and make it appear as if the Great Depression never happened! That would be nifty!
I know this will be hard to face the truth for liberals but some facts before you speak and all this can be verified so come back to reality and Inalienable rights before you destroy our Country:
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 Democratic 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, the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress:
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 CREATION!
Remember that 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!
THANK YOU DEMOCRATS (especially Abomination Barney Frank) for taking us from 13,000 DOW, 3.5 GDP and 4.6% 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!
(BTW: Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie -starting in 2001 because it was financially risky for the US economy).
Barney blocked it and called it a “Chicken Little Philosophy” (and the sky did fall!)
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, especially BARNEY!!!!
So when someone tries to blame Bush…
REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007…. THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!”
Bush may have been in the car but the Democrats were in charge of the gas pedal and steering wheel they were driving the economy into the ditch.
Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic 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 budget. 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. Let’s remember what the deficits looked like during that period:
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.”
Another interesting fact that isn’t making headlines is how they’ve falsely stimulated Wall Street to appear that we’re doing “just fine” which is the stimulus Obama with Bernanke have put in place not telling the American people what it is or what it does, it’s called quantitative easing when they purchase something in stocks to make them seem worth more, but they were printing money to purchase items, or borrowing using the central bank which creates a false market and although makes it seem stable all it’s accomplishing is to further lower the value of the dollar, and it will also cause a large issue with inflation later on and can cause and even greater collapse of the market. When are they going to be trying this easing, well they plan the first attempt for Q3 or just before the election to make the market look even better for Obama’s re-election, but you must read the facts from the link here and research this it’s true and scary then take a look at the one below this one as well: http://economy.money.cnn.com/2012/09/03/martin-feldstein-what-worries-me-about-qe/?iid=SF_BN_Lead
Another link about this is here: http://bonds.about.com/od/advancedbonds/a/What-Is-Quantitative-Easing.htm
There is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on!
“The problems we face today exist because the people who work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a living.”
Thanks for stopping by! Sometimes I feel like I’m the only conservative following my blog – everyone else seems to be liberal. 😉
Well I see you are using your right wing ideology to try and combat the left. Look at your own data. It clearly shows a trend developing in Bush’s last year in office. You are no better than the left. The current problems are both men’s fault. Started with bush and is still going on. Although as of March 2014 unemployment rate had dropped down 6.5. So don’t sit on your high horse and spread your lies too. Be honest. Be objective. You say the left is bias, what about you?
I agree that both Bush and Obama share part of the blame.
Also if you really are interested in researching the truth and being objective then look at the oil prices past 20 years and it’s effect on the economy. The year before bush became president oil was $10 per barrel and after rose to over $100. Remind me again what business his family was in? Cheney? Exactly! Don’t blame the democrats for everything be honest.
Todd,
Are you seriously suggesting that Bush and Cheney fixed oil prices?
Oil prices rose because of simple supply and demand dynamics. Over the last 20 years, over 2 billion people in China and India dramatically increased their consumption of oil. Oil prices have only begun to decline recently because of the oil shale revolution in North America, which has increased the US supply of crude oil.
I don’t think you can blame the Democrats or the Republicans for oil prices.
People should not focus on who the president is so much as the other factors that have more to do with employment.