I honestly believe that although Ronnie Reagan started us on this road to disaster, it was the works of GWShiiteForBrains that accelerated our demise. His policies have left a nearly irreparable economy. I think it can be fixed in about 12 years, but not without some sort of incentives to create jobs at local levels. That does not mean giving more money to the alleged "job creators" who have not created jobs. Money for more school teachers, not new buildings. Money for local energy projects that deliver local savings and benefits. Money for local infrastructure improvements done by locals. We have established a huge Corporate Welfare Net that has been sucking our economy dry. We have been making War to maintain Military/Industrial/Corporate projects and profits. We have military in 140 countries. We are not the World's police because every country in whch we intervene presents some Corporate, strategic, or resource reward and that is about selfishness, not police work. We need to step back and look at our Nation objectively instead of buying the imagery being propagated by the Media. We are good people and the acts of our gov't don't reflect that and have not since Eisenhower was president. Truman was good also.
I believe you are totally incorrect. Some of the laws that affected the economy and still affect it date back to FDR, however many of the rest go back to Kennedy and Johnson areas, with a few more thrown in during the Carter years and into the Clinton years. Even during the Nixon, Reagan, and G. H. Bush times, Dems controlled both house of congress.
DOD spending for 2012 was $707.5 Billion, the deficit for that year is $1.3 Trillion. So, even if we had not spent a penny on defense, the deficit would still have been 592.5 Billion. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that Defense is not the sole, nor major problem. Not to mention that the DOD creates a lot of jobs and employs a lot of people. That is part of the problem, even those Congressmen/Senators who want to cut military spending only want to do so in someone else's district, not theirs because of the jobs and economic benefits DOD brings to an areas.
You are also leaving off the economic impact of Unions, OSHA, EPA, Fair Housing Act, Fair Credit acts, Free Trade agreements with countries who cannot economically contribute much if anything in our favor (One NAFTA, was Clinton's creation, South Korea was Obama's) and more that I probably don't know about or cannot think of off the top of my head.
You and others want to blame G.W. Bush, I won't deny that he probably had some to do with it. If you believe it was him, give us the facts of what he did to cause it. Where is your proof of what you say? It is easy to say things, but can you back them up? Come on, show us your facts and your logic chain. I for one am not going to just take your word for it.
P.S. one a personal note, you claim conservative as you lean, but I, for one, have noticed that a large number of your post espouse ideas/ideals in keeping with American Liberalism.