Actually, you can put a LOT of the blame on Bush. This does not get Obama off the hook, as he is also spending like a drunken sailor. Both Bush and Obama are responsible, and only a political hack will blame one while giving the other a pass.
Exactly.
However, being in the recession we are in, in the world, cutting spending is the last thing you should do. In fact you should increase it temporary till the private sector spending picks up again and can take over the "engine" and the cut spending to balance the budget (preferably a surplus so you can save/pay off old debt).
Now that aint saying what Obama is doing is right or wrong though. The usual partisan hacks seem to be rambling on about "oh it is so bad all this spending" but as usual come with zero realistic alternatives.
The fact is the US had a massive deficit during the "good years" where there should be no deficit but in fact a surplus. If you look at other countries with great economic expansion during the 1990s and onwards, all of them had pretty much budget surpluses.. the only ones that did not.. the US and UK.
If anything, Bush spent far more as a drunken sailor than Obama (for now). Why? because he took over a surplus and despite the 9/11 mini recession, he had many years of great economic expansion (granted it was in many ways fake but still), where there should have been a surplus to pay off the deficits of the past. But instead what did Bush do? He increased spending dramatically across the board, without cutting anywhere and on top of that he cut taxes and went into 2 wars... Sure the tax revenue increased for a while, but it is like pissing in your pants.. you have a nice warm feeling for a while, and then it gets real cold.
Then Obama comes along, being forced into a situation that calls for drastic things. Should he cut spending.. no, that goes against every principle of getting out of a recession. The right tried that in 1929 and look where that got us.
Should he increase spending?.. yes to compensate as much as possible for the fall in private consumption, but by how much and how to pay for it.. he has zero nest egg to take off thanks to Bush, and thanks to Bush the deficit is already at record levels so there is very little leeway for him to do anything but loan more and more money to pay for any increase in spending that is needed.
Now the real test comes when the US economy starts to recover big time.. will he cut spending and at least attempt to balance the budget and draw down the deficit or will he be a Bush 2.0? That is the real question, but to be brutally honest with zero partisanship.. Obama was not exactly dealt a great hand...and with the political bickering and money grabbing Congress it aint gonna be easy.. look at the F22 program.. waste of money for over a decade and yet was kept in play by congress because it gave money to their states.. things like that has to change for the US to have a remote chance of getting out of this economic crisis.