Finger-Pointing in Financial Crisis Is Directed at Bush

[babylonsister]

Finger-Pointing in Financial Crisis Is Directed at Bush

By MARK LANDLER and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: September 19, 2008


WASHINGTON — For his entire presidency, George W. Bush has tried to avoid the fate of his father, brought low by a feeble economy. Now, as the financial crisis radiates far beyond Wall Street, Mr. Bush faces an even grimmer prospect: being blamed, at least in part, for an economic breakdown.

“There will be ample opportunity to debate the origins of this problem,” Mr. Bush said in the Rose Garden on Friday. “Now is the time to solve it.”

But in Washington, on Wall Street and on the presidential campaign trail, the debate has already begun.

Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, denounces what he calls the Bush administration’s “failed philosophy.”

Senator John McCain, the Republican, claimed Friday that “the administration did nothing” to rein in the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, even though the White House did push some reforms on Capitol Hill.

And while economists and other experts say there are plenty of culprits — Democrats and Republicans in Congress, the Federal Reserve, an overzealous home-lending industry, banks and also Mr. Bush’s predecessor, Bill Clinton — they do agree that the Bush administration bears part of the blame.

These experts, from both political parties, say Mr. Bush’s early personnel choices and overarching antipathy toward regulation created a climate, that, if it did not set off the turmoil, almost certainly aggravated it.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/business/20prexy.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

[EV_Ares]

1. Yeah Bush is guilty as others but isn't McCain and Phil Gramm especially guilty of

helping this crisis to develop with their bill they pushed through back a few years.

[Union Thug]

2. That's the problem. This isn't just Bush or a bunch of corrupt executives. This is an indictment...

of the entire conservative/libertarian economic philosophy, and that is how it SHOULD be portrayed to avoid ever getting to this point again (well, until the dimwitted great grandchildren of people who lived through it decide to ignore history and elect a future wave of Reagan/Thatcher puppets of the elite again).

[Zorro]

3. Reaganomics is proven a failure yet again

It doesn't take a Ph.D to figure out that reducing taxes to raise tax revenue is (and was) a stupendously idiotic economic philosophy.

Coupled with aggressive deregulation and reduced federal oversight, it's not surprising that our economy is in the current situation.

Alan Greenspan deserves a lot of the blame for what's going on now; if he had shown any personal integrity that first year of Bush's administration and not blessed the proposed tax rate cuts, we'd be a lot better off.