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What did Obama do to forestall economic crisis?

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So, now, we’ve got the president proposing yet another “stimulus,” calling “for Congress to approve major upgrades to the nation’s roads, rail lines and runways — part of a six-year plan that would cost tens of billions of dollars and create a government-run bank to finance innovative transportation projects.”  Um, weren’t such “infrastructure investments” part of the original stimulus*?

Meanwhile, Obama keeps attacking Republicans.  And over on our blog, one of his most diligent defenders laughs

. . . at the absurd idea that the state of the economy is even partly President Obama’s fault. Republicans did this and their prescriptions to ‘fix’ it will only make it worse. Did Republicans control the Presidency and the Congress for the bulk of the last decade or am I remembering that wrong?

Not even partly Obama’s fault, huh?  He’s been president for nearly 20 months and got nearly his entire economic agenda passed by an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress.  And before he took office as chief executive of this great nation, he had served for nearly four full years in the United States Senate, the latter half of his term as part of the majority.

So, my question to the president’s defenders is this:  while he was in Congress, what legislation did Obama write, promote or otherwise support which would have forestalled the economic crisis he is currently trying to fix with increased government spending.

Please respond not by attacking Republicans, but by identifying specific pieces of legislation — as well as quotes from then-Senator Obama promoting said legislation or links to articles about or synopses of his efforts to secure the passage of said legislation.

*UPDATE:  Yep, indeedy.  Jim Geraghty reminds us how much the president touted those “infrastructure investments in his 2009 “stimulus.”

Comments

  1. Runways? Which airports are owned by the federal government? By “rail lines” he means Amtrak rail lines, right? Or is he gonna subsidize CSX, Union Pacific etc. which are all union?

  2. Further I’ll remind Levi of the standard, which the liberals set in place after BJ left, that a President is no longer responsible for ANYTHING once he leaves office.

  5. I’d like to know how the state of the economy is even partly Republicans fault. Democrats have controlled BOTH houses of congress since a year before the recession even began and two years before the financial crisis. Republicans left the economy growing and left with very low unemployment.

    AFTER they are done answering your question of course. Which they cant do, because Obama did nothing. And the only thing he has done since becoming president is to make everything much worse. Just like his “progressive” idol FDR.

    When a recession happens under a Republican, they quickly turn it around (or avoid it altogther) as Bush did in 2000 and again after the 9/11 attacks. But when a recession happens under a “progressive” like FDR or Obama, they turn it into a depression.

    D is for Depression, R is for Recovery.

  6. Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge were BOTH republican, and BOTH the house and the senate before our ONLY depression were republican. So your assertion that D is for Depression and R is for recovery is NOT supported by history.

  8. If anyone believes that Obama’s plan to spend billions (which we don’t have) more is anything but an offering to the Unions for more money and more votes, he is an absolute fool.
    The really sad thing is that it will probably work – the rank and file will suddenly develop a great interest in the midterm elections and the money will pour in.

  10. It’s unfortunate that Bush let domestic spending and government salaries race out of control, ran deficits in the hundreds of billions, backed Greenspan who lowered interest rates to 1% and set off the housing bubble, and failed to rein in the reckless lending of Freddie and Fannie. All of which were mistakes whereby Bush and the (other!) Democrats created the 2008 financial crisis.

    That being unfortunate, it is tragic and foolish beyond belief that Obama is doubling- and tripling-down on the Bush mistakes: letting domestic spending race even more out of control; bailing out Freddie, Fannie and the worst elements of the unions and Wall Street; running deficits in the trillions; backing Bernanke who has lowered interest rates to 0%; and generally trying to inflate the ‘next bubble’ (which seems to be in government as such, and in Treasury bonds).

    Economically, Bush pointed the bus off the cliff – and Obama, after totally failing to fight it as Senator, has spent the last 20 months stepping on the gas pedal.

  11. Aside from their terrible record on gay rights lets not forget Republicans want to bomb Iran and lots of countries with nuclear capabilites (North Korea and even Russia at some point for good measure), take away women’s right to make decision about what to do if they get pregnant, systematically destroy the economy, eradicate social security, privatize health care and medicare, leave the sick, the elderly and the unemployed for dead in the streets and turn Government into a small Church like organisation that has next to no power. If you want America to turn into a feral backwater banana republic, go right ahead and vote for Republicans. If you want America to remain in the third world you know the choice to make.

  12. steve, read my posts before responding. Do you see the title of the post is a question. To which you were supposed to provide an answer.

    You see, you’re just attacking Republicans, instead of, as requested, indicating the legislation then-Sen. Obama wrote, promoted or otherwise supported in order to forestall the current economic crisis.

  17. President Obama made the economic crisis worse with Porkulus, ObamaCare, the Dodd-Frank Bank Regulations law, & the threat of Crap & Tax & Crap & Tax by fiat through the EPA as each cumbersome, centralized government law is a whole new slew of taxes & regulations. Obama is only talking about the economy now because he can see the Democrat electoral holocaust coming for November. He’s too late on the economy because it never was his focus; Federal Government power grabs is his focus. Obama is desperate.

  18. Not even partly Obama’s fault, huh? He’s been president for nearly 20 months and got nearly his entire economic agenda passed by an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress. And before he took office as chief executive of this great nation, he had served for nearly four full years in the United States Senate, the latter half of his term as part of the majority.

    My point is that the economic crisis was caused almost exclusively by the Republican party. Obama’s in charge of the clean-up, and while I think he’s made mostly incorrect decisions, the stimulus has helped to diminish more widespread economic devastation, which is something that Republican politicians that voted against the stimulus have said to their constituents, I’ll remind yyou. What he’s done is administer about 33% of the medicine – it doesn’t fix the problem completely but it helps.

    Obama’s responsibility is to repair the economy in the middle of a crisis with the party at fault doing everything they can to stop him and avoid accountability – a far more difficult task than ruining the economy in the first place when things are going pretty good.

    So, my question to the president’s defenders is this: while he was in Congress, what legislation did Obama write, promote or otherwise support which would have forestalled the economic crisis he is currently trying to fix with increased government spending.

    He couldn’t have done a thing – the housing bubble was well on its way by 2005 and you can’t pretend like a single, freshman Senator has any kind of pull in the Congress.

  20. Levi, please read my entire post before responding. Do you see the title of the post is a question. To which you were supposed to provide an answer.

    You failed to indicate any legislation then-Sen. Obama wrote, promoted or otherwise supported in order to forestall the current economic crisis.

    All you do is make excuses and so make my point that he did nothing. You say a freshman Senator lacks pull in Congress? But, this particular freshman Senator commanded more media attention than most. And he didn’t even try. He didn’t even try.

    So, you admit then that he wasn’t much concerned with the supposedly looming economic problems. If the Bush era were as bad as he claims and it took us so long to get into this crisis, requiring more than just 20 months of effort, then, wouldn’t Democrats deserving of our emulation have been trying to stop the crisis before we got in too deep?

  21. Further I’ll remind Levi of the standard, which the liberals set in place after BJ left, that a President is no longer responsible for ANYTHING once he leaves office.

    The ‘standard’ I use is one I heard back during the 2003 recession, which is that it takes about five years for the economic impact of a President and/or congress to be felt.

    Of course they were using this to blame Bush’s mess on Clinton (and, erm, the Republican congress in 1998) but what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

    It does amuse me to see Bush get knifed in the back so often here though. Every time an election comes around, the American people are told to elect Republicans because they’re fiscal conservatives. Then once those same Republicans are out of office, the same people who helped them get elected suddenly seem get an epiphany and realize that actually they were terrible big government progressives all along!

    Now I don’t like fiscal conservatives, but let’s go into a hypothetical reality where I do like fiscal conservatives and I’m an American and I want to elect one. How do I tell the difference between a real fiscal conservative and a pretend one?

  23. But, this particular freshman Senator commanded more media attention than most. And he didn’t even try. He didn’t even try.

    This is the Reagan legacy. He was to be the man who would turn things around. But he didn’t even try

    Wow, I’ve been talking about approval rating coincidences between Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan, but I didn’t know they were twins!

  24. Serenity, please show me where W blamed the recession at the start of his term on Clinton.

    Show me where Obama blamed the recession at the start of his term on W. Presidents never directly blame each other.

    And please address the questions I raised in the post, showing the particular legislation, then-Sen. Obama backed.

    No. I have better things to do than to hunt down legislation only to be told “Well that hurt the economy! Find me something that actually helped!”. That’s why I hate economics, it’s 90% opinion, 9% bickering, and only 1% facts.

  25. So, let’s score Dan’s challenge to the lefties. Up to this point:

    – Jay: 0
    – steve: 0
    – Levi: 0
    – Serenity Pomposity: despite much hot gas, still 0.

    Show me where Obama blamed the recession at the start of his term on W.

    ROFL 🙂 Hey, Pomposity: is “at the start of his term” your weasel qualifier? Your way of getting out? Because Obama and his close advisors blame Bush for the economy all the time. Just google “obama blames bush for the economy” and work your way through a few pages.
    – If someone finds a 2010 quote – will you claim only 2009 counts?
    – If someone finds an October 2009 quote – will you claim only the first half counts?
    – If someone finds a May 2009 quote (first half) – will you claim only the first quarter counts?
    – If someone finds a March 2009 quote (first quarter) – will you claim that only January counts?
    – If someone finds a January 30 quote – will you claim that only January 20 counts?
    – If someone were to find a January 20 quote – would you claim that only the pre-inauguration days, or the election campaign in 2008, count?

  27. For completeness: Pomposity could have meant “at the start of his term” the same way Dan did, i.e., merely as “the recession that happened to be taking place back then.” My chief point is the ridiculousness of claiming “Show me where Obama blamed the recession… on W”. When Obama has done that often.

  28. Wow, Insipidity sure does get pissy when challenged to present facts, doesn’t she? Funny how she has all kinds of time to find anti-Reagan links in an earlier thread, but has “better things to do” than run a quick search on Thomas.gov to look up Dear Reader’s legislative record.

  29. “Please respond not by attacking Republicans, but by identifying specific pieces of legislation.”

    Of course we won’t see that. Can we expect reading for comprehension from people who care nothing for facts?

    “Pomposity” and “Insipidity.”

    Both of those are great names — and so accurate! One would think somebody named after an incontinence pad would find either one to be an improvement.

  31. 815-Billion dollars for 3.5-million jobs…that’s about $233,000-per-job. It would have been cheaper and more stimulative to have just mailed everyone a check. Now we’re going to spend another 80 to 100-billion dollars subsidizing the Davis-Bacon labor unions?

  33. the stimulus has helped to diminish more widespread economic devastation,

    How?

    which is something that Republican politicians that voted against the stimulus have said to their constituents, I’ll remind yyou.

    And I’ll remind you that’s what Madcow said, probably parroting MediaMorons as she’s incapable of original thought.

    Obama’s responsibility is to repair the economy in the middle of a crisis with the party at fault doing everything they can to stop him and avoid accountability

    HOW? Who’s stopped him? And he’s doing a damn fine job of avoiding accountability on his own.

  39. Have I missed where any Obama supporters have provided one piece of evidence that Dear Leader as a Senator ever wrote, promoted, or otherwise supported that which would have forestalled the economic crisis he is currently trying to fix with increased government spending?

    Just a lot of Bush bashing from the whiners on the statist playground – psst, Bush has left the building.