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Obama Tells Tall Tales About the Bush Years

LowDown

LowDown

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Obama Tells Tall Tales About Bush Years To Attack Romney - Investors.com

Romney, [Obama] says, wants to do two things: Cut taxes for the rich and massively deregulate the economy.

"The truth is," Obama says, "we tried (that) for almost a decade, and it didn't work."

Bush-era tax cuts and deregulation, he argues "resulted in the most sluggish job growth in decades" along with "rising inequality, surpluses turned into deficits, culminating in the worst economic crisis in our lifetimes."

There's just one problem. Obama's got his history wrong.
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Bush did NOT do a lot of deregulation. The deregulation took place under Clinton. Having had to deal with Enron, Bush was busy throwing CEOs in jail and re-regulating, hiring more regulators, and putting more money in the regulatory effort.

Also, the Bush tax cuts DID work. Between when they went into effect in 2003 and 2007 when the economy was overtaken by the housing bubble there was a growth in jobs of 8.1 million. It is NOT true that the rich paid proportionally less tax under the Bush tax cuts. They paid MORE of the total tax burden.

Moreover, following the Reagan tax cuts and deregulation the nation enjoyed a tremendous period of growth lasting 8 years at double the current GDP growth rate.
 
The End of Prosperity is a good book that explains the effectiveness of GWB's policies.

It actually goes back through the administrations of the 20th century and explains which policies worked and which didn't.
 
LowDown said:
Bush did NOT do a lot of deregulation. The deregulation took place under Clinton. Having had to deal with Enron, Bush was busy throwing CEOs in jail and re-regulating, hiring more regulators, and putting more money in the regulatory effort.

Also, the Bush tax cuts DID work. Between when they went into effect in 2003 and 2007 when the economy was overtaken by the housing bubble there was a growth in jobs of 8.1 million. It is NOT true that the rich paid proportionally less tax under the Bush tax cuts. They paid MORE of the total tax burden.

Moreover, following the Reagan tax cuts and deregulation the nation enjoyed a tremendous period of growth lasting 8 years at double the current GDP growth rate.
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so true.. but the vile liberal media sells sheer propoganda and lies..
 
bush-tax-cuts.bmp
 
Obama is correct. Virtually all of the gains during the Bush years: 1) accrued to the wealthy, and 2) were attributable to the illusory real estate and financial bubbles.

President Bush has presided over the weakest eight-year span for the U.S. economy in decades, according to an analysis of key data, and economists across the ideological spectrum increasingly view his two terms as a time of little progress on the nation's thorniest fiscal challenges.

The number of jobs in the nation increased by about 2 percent during Bush's tenure, the most tepid growth over any eight-year span since data collection began seven decades ago. Gross domestic product, a broad measure of economic output, grew at the slowest pace for a period of that length since the Truman administration. And Americans' incomes grew more slowly than in any presidency since the 1960s, other than that of Bush's father.

Bush and his aides are quick to point out that they oversaw 52 straight months of job growth in the middle of this decade, and that the economy expanded at a steady clip from 2003 to 2007. But economists, including some former advisers to Bush, say it increasingly looks as if the nation's economic expansion was driven to a large degree by the interrelated booms in the housing market, consumer spending and financial markets. Those booms, which the Bush administration encouraged with the idea of an "ownership society," have proved unsustainable.
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Bush Lead During Weakest Economy in Decades
 
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When did the real estate bubbles start, Adam?
 
LowDown said:
Bush did NOT do a lot of deregulation. The deregulation took place under Clinton. Having had to deal with Enron, Bush was busy throwing CEOs in jail and re-regulating, hiring more regulators, and putting more money in the regulatory effort.

Also, the Bush tax cuts DID work. Between when they went into effect in 2003 and 2007 when the economy was overtaken by the housing bubble there was a growth in jobs of 8.1 million. It is NOT true that the rich paid proportionally less tax under the Bush tax cuts. They paid MORE of the total tax burden.

Moreover, following the Reagan tax cuts and deregulation the nation enjoyed a tremendous period of growth lasting 8 years at double the current GDP growth rate.
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You mean that somebody running for office is running against the record of the other party? Never heard that before.....

BTW, Romney's running against his own record somehow. That's fascinating how he's pulling that off. Willful ignorance, I guess.
 
LowDown said:
Bush did NOT do a lot of deregulation. The deregulation took place under Clinton. Having had to deal with Enron, Bush was busy throwing CEOs in jail and re-regulating, hiring more regulators, and putting more money in the regulatory effort.

Also, the Bush tax cuts DID work. Between when they went into effect in 2003 and 2007 when the economy was overtaken by the housing bubble there was a growth in jobs of 8.1 million. It is NOT true that the rich paid proportionally less tax under the Bush tax cuts. They paid MORE of the total tax burden.

Moreover, following the Reagan tax cuts and deregulation the nation enjoyed a tremendous period of growth lasting 8 years at double the current GDP growth rate.
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Hussein Obama has told so many lies that its hard to keep tracck of them.............He would sell his soul for a vote.
 
AdamT said:
Thanks for the graph showing the start of a massive spike in home prices in 2004. :lol:
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Your welcome, however you need to be able to read the chart, because you dont seem to be able to read what I posted. The spike began in 96, tapered in 97 and 98 then spiked again and trended up steadily with some skips.

Of course if you are just into misrepresentation you will read only that it supports your position and not an answer to a broader question of when the housing price bubble started which was 95-96.
 
The Bush tax cuts must be extended for all Americans, including the wealthy.

How are we supposed to keep creating jobs if they are not extended?
 
LowDown said:
Bush did NOT do a lot of deregulation. The deregulation took place under Clinton. Having had to deal with Enron, Bush was busy throwing CEOs in jail and re-regulating, hiring more regulators, and putting more money in the regulatory effort.

Also, the Bush tax cuts DID work. Between when they went into effect in 2003 and 2007 when the economy was overtaken by the housing bubble there was a growth in jobs of 8.1 million. It is NOT true that the rich paid proportionally less tax under the Bush tax cuts. They paid MORE of the total tax burden.

Moreover, following the Reagan tax cuts and deregulation the nation enjoyed a tremendous period of growth lasting 8 years at double the current GDP growth rate.
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That's bull. On an individual basis, they paid far less. The right confuses the issue by grouping... say the top 2%.. but since millions of tax payers at the bottom no longer paid taxes ... the 2% after the tax cuts represented more wealthy individuals than before. This would happen even if tax rates didn't change.. it's math 101.
 
OpportunityCost said:
Your welcome, however you need to be able to read the chart, because you dont seem to be able to read what I posted. The spike began in 96, tapered in 97 and 98 then spiked again and trended up steadily with some skips.

Of course if you are just into misrepresentation you will read only that it supports your position and not an answer to a broader question of when the housing price bubble started which was 95-96.
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The sharp spike occurred in at the beginning of 2004. Prices started rising earlier, in part due to the dotcom bubble and in part due changes in capital gains taxes, but it's generally accepted that the real estate bubble blew up because of the abandonment of lending standards and explosion of subprime mortgages that took place between '04 and '06. I understand that doesn't fit in your partisan narrative, but that's the way it was.
 
AdamT said:
The sharp spike occurred in at the beginning of 2004. Prices started rising earlier, in part due to the dotcom bubble and in part due changes in capital gains taxes, but it's generally accepted that the real estate bubble blew up because of the abandonment of lending standards and explosion of subprime mortgages that took place between '04 and '06. I understand that doesn't fit in your partisan narrative, but that's the way it was.
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Actually, there are a lot of phases to a bubble, and I'm pretty sure that the period from 04-06 was just the insane blow-up phase of the bubble where the general public got sucked in. All bubbles start much sooner than that. All bubbles have to start much sooner than that, in order for market-makers to prepare themselves and the economy for such a rush of cash into one particular place.

How to Take Advantages of Asset Bubbles | InvestingAnswers

I understand that this means you will have to go back and dig deeper than headline news to find understanding, but people do it all the time. I'm sure you'll be fine.
 
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Thunder said:
having their tax-rate go up 4% won't effect their spending.
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Are you for real? Do you realize how much money 4% of their paycheck is?

Enough to hire a small team of people to study the consequences of different financial decisions, prepare a nice report on their options, go out and play a round of golf followed by a steak dinner just because . . . and then they still have most of it left. Mere fractions of a percent difference in costs/tax rates can have a rather profound effect on how people and businesses spend their money.
 
OpportunityCost said:
Your welcome, however you need to be able to read the chart, because you dont seem to be able to read what I posted. The spike began in 96,
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In late 1995 Clinton's Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin (with strong Republican support in congress) believed Glass - Steagall was very outdated and started pushing for lighter regulation on securities, specifically swaps.

tapered in 97 and 98 then spiked again and trended up steadily with some skips.
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The taper was largely due to the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and the tightening of credit as a result of weaker securities markets.

The real bubble began in earnest after the passing of the Gramm Leach Financial Securities Act of 1999, passed by a Republican congress, signed into law by President Clinton, and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, once again passed by a Republican congress and signed into law by President Clinton. The result was basically the repeal of Glass Steagall and the deregulation of derivatives. The later proved to be the fuel for the mortgage bubble and the financial crisis we are still digging out of. So basically both parties have their hands dirty on this one.

Its popular right wing mythology that the mortgage bubble was a result of the Community Reinvestment Act. However, even when you ignore the fact that the timeline simply doesn't match at all in terms of correlation, the housing bubble was not in the inner city and minority neighborhoods (the areas covered under CRA), it was largely in upper middle class and wealthy suburbs.

Poor state level regulation of appraisers had a role to play as well.
 
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MOrion said:
Are you for real? Do you realize how much money 4% of their paycheck is?....
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its not 4% of their entire salary.

you should know that.

plus the fact that many wealthy folks earn most of their money from capital gains, and NOT income.
 
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johnny_rebson said:
The Bush tax cuts must be extended for all Americans, including the wealthy.

How are we supposed to keep creating jobs if they are not extended?
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Increasing demand. Nobody creates jobs out of the goodness of their heart, they hire people because they need more people.

I don't know where this myth came from that if we just cut taxes on the wealthy, they'll create jobs. Tax cuts don't create any more jobs than tax raises do. Business conditions create jobs. A rebounding economy creates jobs.
 
MOrion said:
Actually, there are a lot of phases to a bubble, and I'm pretty sure that the period from 04-06 was just the insane blow-up phase of the bubble where the general public got sucked in.
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The insane blow-up phase where the public gets sucked in is what distinguishes a bubble from simple price inflation.

There is nothing particularly disastrous about housing inflation, as long as reasonable underwriting standards are observed. What made the housing bubble so deadly was fact that millions of mortgages were sold with little or no assurance that the borrowers could repay the loans.
 
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SouthernDemocrat said:
In late 1995 Clinton's Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin (with strong Republican support in congress) believed Glass - Steagall was very outdated and started pushing for lighter regulation on securities, specifically swaps.



The taper was largely due to the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and the tightening of credit as a result of weaker securities markets.

The real bubble began in earnest after the passing of the Gramm Leach Financial Securities Act of 1999, passed by a Republican congress, signed into law by President Clinton, and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, once again passed by a Republican congress and signed into law by President Clinton. The result was basically the repeal of Glass Steagall and the deregulation of derivatives. The later proved to be the fuel for the mortgage bubble and the financial crisis we are still digging out of. So basically both parties have their hands dirty on this one.

Its popular right wing mythology that the mortgage bubble was a result of the Community Reinvestment Act. However, even when you ignore the fact that the timeline simply doesn't match at all in terms of correlation, the housing bubble was not in the inner city and minority neighborhoods (the areas covered under CRA), it was largely in upper middle class and wealthy suburbs.

Poor state level regulation of appraisers had a role to play as well.
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In large part I agree with you. Lighter lending standards were right in there as well, I dont see CRA as a cause, I see the easier lending standards as a cause. Any time you make money too easy to get, there will be hell to pay later.
 
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