How much do you still blame George W Bush for the present economy?

[kentuck]

How bad do you think it was when he left office?

How long would you have guessed it would have taken to get the economy back on track?

Do you think Barack Obama has had enough time to fix it?

Do you think most people still hold George W Bush responsible for the economy Barack Obama inherited or do you think they now blame the President entirely?

These are important questions that will affect how people will vote in the next election, in my opinion. Just how bad was the mess that was left??

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. 100%

[tibbiit]

25. me too

100% because the bush admin represented and enabled the theives and their friends for eight years, who shit all over the poor and the middle class.

tib

[bobthedrummer]

46. YEP. n/t

[mikeiddy]

2. 99%

[rfranklin]

3. 100%...if Obama had been handed a booming economy I would give him blame but...

Bush like his father took control with a good economy and left a shambles. Of course, for the top 1% the results were exactly like they paid for.

[nichomachus]

4. Well, trick questions

It was bad when Bush took office, but the effects had been masked by the Internet bubble.

There was never any intention to get the economy "back on track." The goal has always been what we're seeing now. That's what the one percenters have been after for 80 years.

Obama didn't have time to fix it, because he didn't intend to -- he plays for the other team.

"Most people" don't know what's going on, so they will blame anyone the media tells them to.

[appleannie1]

5. It takes years and government co-operation to come back from a recession

I did not expect miracles overnight and since there is no co-operation it is going to take a heck of a lot longer than the norm. Read history and how we dug out of the depression or how many years it took to recover in the 1980's. My husband was laid off for 3 full years then and unable to find anything, even minimum wage work.

[Dawson Leery]

6. 30 years of failed neo-liberal economic policy is to blame.

Certainly Bush and company created this massive bubble of cheap debt which caused the current economic situation.

The the most part, George W. Bush and those in congress who assisted him, are to blame for the current economic situation.

Since this current situation is the result of a generation of policies, it will take another generation to correct.
With a hostile reactionary congress, the recovery will only take longer.

[ixion]

11. exactly.

[Dawson Leery]

15. Dubya opened the door to the mainstream for the religious fundamentalists too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2075807#2075869

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

7. More important question: "How long will it take to reverse given the current President's actions?"

The state of the economy might be GWB's fault...
But whose fault is it if the status quo is maintained for the following 8 years?

[kentuck]

12. I think that is a legitimate question.

Of course, it hasn't been three years yet. If he doesn't change course, neither history nor the voters will be kind to him or the Democratic Party, in my opinion.

[asjr]

13. You must be very young.

[OHdem10]

8. From Day ONE M Zandi, Moody's has predicted it would be

at least 2016 before the job market would pick up.
No Jobs=no recovery to most of us.

There is a Structural Problem brought on by Globalization
and poorly managed Trade Policy and no one is addressing
this.

It seems they prefer to blame everything on Housing Bust.
and ignore the elephant in the room.

I believed Zandi and he is being proven correct, so far.

[ixion]

9. not just him, I blame the neocon agenda, of which he was a part

and which is not just limited to the GOP.

[Fire Walk With Me]

10. 100%. They did it on purpose as a power and resource grab.

[Blue_Tires]

14. More so than the economy, I'll forever blame him for allowing so many

proudly ignorant/fundie/anti-science jerkoffs to come to prominence this past decade, and their inflexible dogma...Not too long ago these clowns were shouted down and afraid to even speak their nuttiness in public...But the Bush years and a pliable media gave them full legitimacy and we're not only giving them hourlong TV shows, we're putting them in congress and on the supreme court...

That imo is the legacy which will continue to haunt us for another decade at least...

[EmeraldCityGrl]

16. I believe it was much worse than we were lead to believe.

Given that I assumed Obama would take immediate steps to prosecute, reinstate Glass-Steagall,
hire economic minds like Paul Krugman to advise him and immediately plan a jobs program
like the WPA, I expected to see positive results towards the end of his first term.

Obama has had enough time to accomplish far more than he has.

Biden was quoted as saying "this is Obama's economy now." I'm not going to argue with Biden
but, the residual effects of the Reagan, Bush, Clinton and GW economies will be felt for years to come.
Now that Obama has chosen the approach he has I believe we have yet to see the worst of times. That
could have been avoided.

[Beer Snob-50]

I believe that we generally give the President more credit for the economy

when it is going good and condemn him more when it is going bad. Now saying that, I think there are things that can be done to help it along (ie tax credits to spur spending by both businesses and individuals) as well as spending on roads, brdiges, and the ilk.

[MatthewStLouis]

17. 50% to Bush. 50% to the current CONGRESS.

The President has power, but he can't pass laws by himself. People give Presidents way too much credit for the economy.

[polmaven]

28. Well, you know what they say...

If con is the opposite of pro, then what is the opposite of progress?

[Angry Dragon]

18. bushie jr is and was a drunken idiot tool

how much can you blame a person like that

[housewolf]

19. Well, let's see .... Reagan, Geo H.W. Bush, Clinton, GW Bush, all Congressional Reps & Senators

since 1980.

The short-term thinking of Wall Street and big business, economists who were caught in the big-money dream, an uninformed and complacent public

And minorly, Obama for his poor choices of advisers and for opting to go for short-term stimulus instead of longer-term fixes

There's plenty of blame to go around

[L0oniX]

20. 99%

[WhiteTara]

21. 99% with gop culpable for the other 1%. n/t

[sinkingfeeling]

22. I blame Bush and the GOP 100%. I would have thought things would have improved more than they have,

but we now know that the GOP/Tea Baggers will stop at nothing to see the economy get worse so that Obama will be blamed.

[pitohui]

23. one thousand percent it's on w

he boldly stated he would follow a soft dollar policy and that's the only campaign promise he kept

he destroyed the dollar and destroyed the worker

as for what most people think, who the fuck cares, most people are racist shitheads, they can't even give credit obama credit for hunting down bin laden, it's hopeless, apparently race hatred is more important than jobs for their children or health care for their parents

i'm about done w. the human race, it's over-run w. shitheads and idiots shouting down the sane people

[Proud Public Servant]

24. LOTS of blame for Democrats, too, I'm sorry to say

I blame Bush 100% for the current debt and deficit. In that the existence of the debt and deficit give Obama less room to maneuver, Bush takes the blame for that. But three other things are true:

1) Dems have very ably aided and abetted the destruction of our manufacturing base and the shipment of our jobs overseas. NAFTA is exhibit A. If we still had a manufacturing base, things might look a bit different right now.

2) No single thing is more to blame for the current crisis than the repeal of Glass-Steagall, a repeal enacted with overwhelming Democratic support and signed into law by a Democratic president.

3) Someday we'll all be happy for Obamacare. But that's how he spent his mandate. The failure of the President to take on the economy in a big way, right away, when he had huge majorities in both houses, is still to my mind the greatest failure of his presidency. This jobs bill is 30 months late; imagine if instead this had been his first big piece of legislation.

I hate to call out my party like this, and luv me some Bush-blamin'. But, since you asked, the Dems past and present own a lot of this.

[BanzaiBonnie]

26. 100%

[Cool Logic]

27. 0.00% - Congress has far more responsibility than the President. when it comes to the economy.

The President submits a Budget every year; however...

(Obama, 2012) The President?s $3.7 trillion budget for Fiscal Year 2012 was dead on arrival in Congress. The Senate voted unanimously, 97-0, to reject the President?s budget.

(Bush, 2007) "Democrats need to say loudly that Bush's budget is Dead On Arrival, just like the Cato Institute did back in 1998, or when John Kasich said it again in 2000, or when any number of other loony Reeps said the same thing for any parochial reason. Say it often, and say it loudly: Bush's budget is dead on arrival. There is no better expert on why Democrats should do this than Grover Norquist himself. If it was good enough for the GOP to say against Democrats, then it is good enough for the Democrats to say against Bush."

(Clinton, 1997) Republican congressional leaders, abandoning their previous practice of declaring the president's budget dead on arrival in Congress, declared their willingness to use Clinton's plan as the basis of negotiations over the shape of next year's government spending and revenue policies.

(G H Bush, 1990) Bush had sent his budget to the Hill on January 29 where the Democrats, despite the afterglow of Panama, had promptly pronounced it Dead on Arrival.

(Reagan, 1981) Reagan's 1981 budget (the only one not to be declared "Dead on Arrival" by House Democrats)

[denverbill]

29. I blame him for the deficit exploding tax cuts, wars and drug program.

And Congress for lax regulation of the banking industry.

Obama gets 2% of the blame, Bush 60% and the GOP/DLC Congress from 1996-2006 38%.

[WI_DEM]

30. Well, what do you think?

Obama inherited a mess and a bigger mess than most people have anticipated. And he did move the economy out of recession and we have had several quarters of growth, not strong growtht, but growth. It has been a jobless recovery so far, but think how bad it would be had Bush or McCain still be in the White House.

[JuniperLea]

31. 100%

It was far worse than any of us knew.

I always thought it would take at least 8 years, the same amount of time W spent fucking us over.

No, and at this rate with all this obstruction, it will take even longer than I think is should.

Yes, not only do most people realize that BushCo is responsible and will continue to be responsible until the mess is cleaned up... and they realize that it's a fairy tale told by the GOTP, this idea that it could have all been fixed by now.

[Andy823]

32. I also say 100%

It was a lot worse when he left office than we will ever know, and president Obama has stopped the country from going into the WORST DEPRESSION in history!

It took Bush 8 years to do his dirty work, and what he did will take even longer to fix, if republicans do not get back in control. If they do we are really in deep shit.

The majority of people DO blame Bush, it's only the braindead right wing morons that want to blame it ALL on president Obama.

With republicans continuing day after day to stop any kind of recovery, I think the biggest issue next year is going to be who is willing to work on fixing this mess, and who is simply fighting for the RICH, and the rest of us can simply go to hell! There is no republican running for the nomination that has a clue as to what to do to fix this mess. They say they do, but they never come out with a real plan to do so. Republicans will lie their ass of to get back in power, but if they do they will continue on down the road that Bush did, privatizing every single function of this country to the rich, and while the rich will continue to get richer, the country will become just another third world country with a two class system, the rich and the poor!

[kentuck]

37. And I would say that if the Democrats cannot get your message across...

Then we could be in much deeper shit than any of us could ever imagine...

[blindpig]

33. It's the Capitalism.....

The needs US of capitalists are the first priority of any US president.

Where exactly are the great policy differences in the economy or foreign policy?

Looks like continuity to me, and we all know how the business community craves 'stability'.

[lunatica]

34. 100%. Without him this wouldn't be happening right now

[Whisp]

35. every bad nickel of it. 1000% of it.

ALL OF IT!!!


PSYCHOFUCKER!!!!%%$$^^##@*&

[JoePhilly]

36. 65% Bush and pre-Obama GOP Congress .... then ...

15% GOP and Blue Dog obstruction.

20% Obama administration with descent Dem support.

The Obama administration, and the Dems who've stayed with the Prez, are the only part of our government who have actively tried to do ANYTHING to improve things.

[Cal33]

38. I'd say: Reagan 50%, Bush I 1%, Bush II 47%, Clinton 1%, Obama 1%.

[Ship of Fools]

39. 100%

[kentuck]

40. There are some Republicans that understand this also...

They are called Tea Partiers. That is why they left the Republican Party. They knew what a disaster George W Bush created. Since then, many have returned to the Republican Party, but in their hearts, they know who is mostly to blame for this mess we are in.

[HopeHoops]

41. Totally (well, only if you count Cheney as part of "Bush")

[madokie]

42. 99%

That was an easy one Kentuck
Dick and w got us in this mess and the pukes in congress are keeping us in this mess

[ladywnch]

43. I don't know, how closely do you associate Jesus Christ with the start of Christianity? n/t

[Billypenn]

44. W

bankrupted the US in several ways. 8 years of this idiot took the country down. This message needs to be drummed by everyone on the left. Two failed wars, tax cuts for the rich, failed senior drug program, failed regulation of the banking industry, failure to act even when it was staring him in the face, allowing a bailout that insured nothing but keeping the wealth where the wealthy wanted it (socialism for the rich), all of this took this country down.

He was illegitimate from day one. Bastard.

[truebrit71]

45. 100%

..