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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (8869)	6/3/2009 6:38:50 AM
From: Bearcatbob	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86356

Big Bush deficits were bad. Monster Obama deficits are _____________________? What Bush did wrong Obama has magnified!

To: TimF who wrote (8869)	6/3/2009 2:52:39 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86356

A recession had not yet started when Bush became president, but Bush inherited the situation where a recession was imminent. Those "what should we do with the surplus" questions where the holdovers from the pre-recession bubble, and didn't accurately reflect the situation Bush inherited. To compare what was happening when Bush became president iwth what was happening when Obama became president is deeply misleading at best. The current crisis is like a 500 year flood compared to a bad thunderstorm 2001. We could have come out of the 2001 recession without the deep deficits that resulted from the Bush tax cuts without corresponding spending cuts. The reason it is so difficult to make spending cuts is because most people want more from government than the tax cutters want to acknowledge, and those services cost money. For example, even the big time tax cutters in some of the western states don't want to do without their dams and water systems--something that Federal government did and that they have never really paid for. They get deeply discounted water without which the area the could never have supported the population that exists there today, or for that matter for much of the 20th century. Not to mention the agriculture and industry. That is just one big example--there are countless other possibilities. As for the claim that the "'what should we do with the surplus' questions where the holdovers from the pre-recession bubble"--the deficit under Bush didn't have to get as bad as it got if his administration hadn't been so gungho about giving such a huge tax cut that I along with many other people believe was utterly unnecessary to address the recession. Not that some tax cut wasn't called for. But not one that wrecked the progress that had been made in the '90s. Seven fat years followed by seven lean years--it is a very old thought. We need to save for the inevitable seven lean years. The tax cut was dishonest from the get-go--including the sunset provisions. If the Republicans in the Bush years had been true conservatives, they would have taken into account the liabilities that everyone knows are coming (SS, Medicare, pensions). Those weren't even part of the discussion, even though they were part of " the situation Bush inherited" and could have been addressed without a great deal of pain back then if he hadn't been so fixated on his $1.7b tax cut, not a penny and not a penny less (well, Medicare still would have caused pain; but not as much as it will cause now and in the future).