What ‘Mess’ is Obama talking about?
The one thing President Obama has shown consistently from his days as Presidential contender until now (and probably for another two plus years) is the “Mess”. As candidate Obama, he spoke of the Mess of the Bush Presidency and no sooner was he elected President did he feel the urgent need to remind the American people daily that “He had inherited a Mess” from his predecessor Bush and his administration. Any decision and action he, Obama had to take was due to the Mess he had inherited and in addition, everything that did not go according to his predictions and forecasts was also because of the Mess.
Politically speaking, this might be a smart thing to do because history has proven that when people hear the same thing over and over again, they tend to believe it to be true. We do not want to call it ‘brainwashing’ but it has ultimately the effect on the average person. There are no polls as to whether this has worked for Obama or not, we only know that his 18-month long Bush bashing rants are getting old for some people. They are seriously wondering when he will take full responsibility for what is happening these days. They are asking: “When will the Bush-Blame-Game stop?”
We here at Common Sense University want to go one step further and revisit the Bush years and the alleged Mess, Obama inherited from his predecessor. This is the beauty of recent history, real facts can be easily found and recalled and put into perspective realistically.
President George W. Bush was inaugurated on January 20, 2001 and he had a Republican-led Congress for the first six years (until January 2007). That is when the Democrats took over the Legislative Branch of the Government for the following two years of Bush’s Presidency.
In January 2001, America was a nation at peace. That all changed on September 11 of that year and resulted in two wars in Afghanistan (commencing in 2001) and in Iraq (in 2003). It also resulted in a major restructuring of the American government by establishing the Department of Homeland Security among other things. While the two wars were initially supported by Democrats, they chose to change their minds within a short period of time and pounded Bush mercilessly from 2004 until the end of his presidency. But the two wars and its associated costs are not the Mess our current President is talking about because it would not rationalize the vast expenditures during the past 18 months. Therefore, the Mess must have something to do with the economy. Alright, let us review and compare the facts for the years from 2001 onward.
The last three years of the Clinton Presidency showed on the Federal level a budget surplus and the unemployment rate nationwide was hovering around 5 percent even though the economy was weakening, some called it a minor recession, and the year 2000 showed a bust of the so called dot.com industry. But we did not hear a word from President George Bush about the sad state of the economy (that he had inherited). The events of September 11 and its immediate aftermath had a negative impact on the economy and understandably so. The airline, hotel and travel industry suffered significantly. In 2001 and 2003 the President and Congress approved sweeping tax cuts for everybody and the economy bounced back. The average unemployment rate from 2001 to 2008 varied from about 4.5 to 5.5 percent. The Federal budget deficits during those years until 2007 ranged from $150 billion to about $380 billion. With the Democrats taking control of Congress in January 2007, the budget deficits increased and have since then soared to $1.85 trillion in fiscal year 2009 when adding the $700 billion TARP and the Obama Stimulus bill to it. The forecast for the current fiscal years ending on September 30, 2010 is estimated to hit $1.45 trillion and the numbers are not coming down significantly for the next several years because the economic outlook is shaky.
Unemployment was steady until about early 2008 when it increased slowly to 6.0 percent and reached 7.6 percent when Bush left office in January 2009. Despite the infusion of the so called Stimulus funds into the economy by the Obama administration, the unemployment rates went upward and hit ten percent in 2009. And it has not come down below 9.5 percent in difference to the rosy scenarios by President Obama when he signed the $860 billion Stimulus bill. The unemployment statistics will be unrealistic from now on anyway because of the vast number (millions) of people simply giving up looking for work.
Mr. President, it looks to us that you made the Mess even worse since you took office and your legislative ‘achievements’ (such as Healthcare) will not make things better for America any time soon. The Mess you inherited was the overextension of borrowing by Americans across the board who re-financed their homes to the maximum including those who were allowed to buy homes without the ability to pay for them. These policies were pushed by Democrats in Congress who protected FreddieMac and FannieMae, the two GSE’s (Government Sponsored Entities) from closer oversight as requested by President Bush in the mid 2000’s. It was the Democrats who played games with social engineering schemes by helping unqualified homebuyers buying homes beyond their financial ability to pay for the mortgages. This has resulted in millions of foreclosures during the past years and contributed heavily to the downturn of the economy.
Unfortunately, the liberal media will never challenge President Obama and he will continue to distort the facts and the real tragedy is that there are enough people in our country who will believe this after a while when it goes on unchallenged. It is an old trick used by people in power throughout history and it seems to be still working to the detriment of America. Let’s get real: The truth is, we are currently in an unsustainable Mess due to the massive borrowing of money at the Federal level initiated by the Obama Administration and the Democrat-led Congress which increases the national debt to incredible heights which could lead to a bankruptcy for the country.
And one more thing: five percent unemployment under George Bush means one out of twenty people are out of work; ten percent under Barack Obama means one out of ten people is out of work. You decide which one is a Mess!
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