Further proof that Obamarama fudged up?

[Collier11]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100131/ap_on_bi_ge/us_bailout_watchdog

[Collier11]

The American people said they didnt want this and now...maybe we were right?

[GKeeper316]

The American people said they didnt want this and now...maybe we were right?

not really.

the article is correct, however, when it says that just bailing out the financial institutions was next to useless without tighter regulations on them.

kinda says what the democrats have been saying all along.

thank you phil gramm, former republican senator from texas, and all you've done for america...



Between 1995 and 2000, Gramm was the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (http://www.soonerfans.com/wiki/U.S._Senate_Committee_on_Banking,_Housing,_and_Urb an_Affairs). During that time he spearheaded efforts to pass banking (http://www.soonerfans.com/wiki/Banking) deregulation (http://www.soonerfans.com/wiki/Deregulation) laws, including the landmark Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (http://www.soonerfans.com/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act) in 1999, which removed Depression-era laws separating banking, insurance and brokerage activities.


the securities regulations that were there because of the great ****ing depression. you wanna blame someone for the mess we're in, blame the right guy. phil gramm, champion of republican economic theory.

edit * o ya... he called the working class a bunch of whiners, once.

[olevetonahill]

not really.

the article is correct, however, when it says that just bailing out the financial institutions was next to useless without tighter regulations on them.

kinda says what the democrats have been saying all along.

thank you phil gramm, former republican senator from texas, and all you've done for america...



the securities regulations that were there because of the great ****ing depression. you wanna blame someone for the mess we're in, blame the right guy. phil gramm, champion of republican economic theory.

edit * o ya... he called the working class a bunch of whiners, once.

Scuse me but wouldnt yer Boy slick willie of had to sign that into law?:pop:

[GKeeper316]

Scuse me but wouldnt yer Boy slick willie of had to sign that into law?:pop:
kinda didnt have a choice, if you recall correctly.

and lets not forget that under the clinton administration, the us economy saw its largest period of growth since the 50s, and left office with a balanced budget, and a federal government operating with a surplus

[olevetonahill]

kinda didnt have a choice, if you recall correctly.

what they was holdin a gun on him ?;)

[GKeeper316]

i will stipulate that he ****ed up our foreign policy tho.

[olevetonahill]

Who?

[GKeeper316]

Who?

bill clinton. terrible foreign policy president.

[Crucifax Autumn]

TARP was passed in 2008 and signed by Bush

[Okla-homey]

and lets not forget that under the clinton administration, the us economy saw its largest period of growth since the 50s, and left office with a balanced budget, and a federal government operating with a surplus

Primarily coincedental because Clinton benefitted from being in the WH during a marvelous period in our history: the Cold War effectively ended and we slashed defense spending accordingly as the rise of agressive Islamic fundamentalism hadn't yet manifested itself in direct attacks on US interests.

In short, a even a chimpanzee in the White House during that era would have "left office with a balanced budget, and a federal government operating with a surplus."

[OUHOMER]

Reaganomics carry over

[JohnnyMack]

If Clinton benefitted from a post Reagan/GHWB reign, I suppose Obama can't be blamed from the mess W left. That's the way it works. Right?

[Rogue]

On the radio yesterday (http://prairieweather.typepad.com/big_blue_stem/2010/01/economy-what-did-they-get-wrong-what-did-they-get-right.html)
I thought it was fairly balanced.

Leonhardt: The economy's clearly in recovery now -- which is good news. The numbers we got this week are a little bit better than we expected. But the thing to keep in mind is that there's such a long way to go. The busts from financial crises wreak terrible havoc on an economy, leave huge numbers of people out of work...... It really is a sequel. This notion that they've made jobs the top priority in part a description of policy. But it's also, in large part, political. They want to seem really engaged on the economy. The stimulus bill that they passed last year has actually had an enormous impact. ....... So they've decided "stimulus" is somewhat of a dirty word and they want to call it a jobs bill instead of a stimulus bill. ......I think Bernanke's -- and to some extent Geithner's -- performance was not that impressive in 2005 and 2006. In fact, it was unimpressive. But in 2007 and 2008, especially, it was pretty close to heroic. They really brought this economy back from the brink and it's sort of hard to parse through those two different things when you see everything going on up on the Hill.
.....The senators are half right. I actually think their emphasis is in the wrong place. It's a lot easier to pound the table about bailouts than it is to have a nuanced discussion of what part of this bubble they should have caught in time.


C'mon people. The economy is bigger than Ds and Rs. The POTUS has a lot less to do with the budget and economy than congress. One of each administration oversaw huge bailout efforts. So neither party can claim any high ground if it works or if it doesn't.

Reagan, Clinton, and GHWB and their respective congresses, did well in economic terms. And probably all would have done better than Jimmah in his admin's years. But he did have some serious challenges from the OPEC types. Sorta like what Homey said...the times usually define the man more than the other way around.

[jkjsooner]

Scuse me but wouldnt yer Boy slick willie of had to sign that into law?:pop:

Yes, that is true. IMO, that is one of Clinton's biggest failures. Everyone in Washington was under the misguided influence of Greenspan, Rubin, and Summers.

At one point in the '90s, Greenspan made a comment to a regulator that "we'll never agree that the government should be in the business of regulating [fraud]."

Yes, he was talking about pure 100% fraud. The regulators were flabbergasted by the comment. But our leaders were under the spell and everyone thought Greenspan was a genuis so he could not be challenged.

And, of course, it worked for a while. It's like me giving my wife all the credit cards and having no control over the spending in our household. It would be easy to convince my children (i.e. voters) that we're rich and they'll all like me - until of course it's time to pay the piper.

[Frozen Sooner]

Primarily coincedental because Clinton benefitted from being in the WH during a marvelous period in our history: the Cold War effectively ended and we slashed defense spending accordingly as the rise of agressive Islamic fundamentalism hadn't yet manifested itself in direct attacks on US interests.

In short, a even a chimpanzee in the White House during that era would have "left office with a balanced budget, and a federal government operating with a surplus."

Really? I thought he got elected on a wave of anti-Bush sentiment because the economy was tanking.

[jkjsooner]

TARP was passed in 2008 and signed by Bush

And its biggest proponents and designers were Bernanke and Paulson - both Bush appointees.

I can't believe how Obama gets the blame in all of this. All Obama did was extend TARP when the same people said that TARP I was not sufficient and the economy was still on the brink of collapse.

I also can't believe that so many people complain about how the money was given w/o proper controls yet every time Obama wanted to restrict those receiving the money the conservatives labeled him a communist who is trying to socialize our entire economy.

Pick which way you want it?

1. Bush's TARP I with almost no limits or controls on the otherwise bankrupt banks receiving the money.

2. Obama's plan to rescue the banks but exercise control on them (since they were pretty much bankrupt anyway and no longer deserved self rule IMO).

3. Allow the banks to go under (probably leading us to Great Depression II) which would have given the government (FDIC, whoever) unlimited power over Wall Street anyway.


This whole issue is so full of partisan B.S. it's unbelievable. I don't like how the bailouts went down and I don't like a lot of Obama's plans but for everyone complaining I ask you the following questions:

1. How would you have handled it?
2. Would you have risked the economic collapse that the Bush appointees at the fed and treasury were predicting?
3. Do you guys really think it's the dream of liberals to give Wall Street bankers billions of dollars?

[jkjsooner]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100131/ap_on_bi_ge/us_bailout_watchdog

You know, I just read that full article and pretty much agree with everything.

I agree 100% that our attempt to stop housing price drops is stupid and destined to fail. It amazes me that these people now agree that we had an unprecedented bubble that eroded affordability yet they think that maintaining the house price is the correct action to take. (Low interest rates are not a long term solution to affordability; It's merely a way to get others to commit financial suicide with the promise of low monthly payments.)

Nevertheless, I don't know what article you read but 90% of this article supports Obama's efforts at more regulation. It sure didn't read like a criticism of Obama to me.

[Crucifax Autumn]

3. Do you guys really think it's the dream of liberals to give Wall Street bankers billions of dollars?

Pay 'tention! Not only do they think that, but they also paradoxically think liberals want to simultaneously take all those bankers' money! lol

I wish more people were moderate or at least closer to it so they could enjoy the same side-splitting laughter that I am treated to by both extremes.

[soonerloyal]

Primarily coincedental because Clinton benefitted from being in the WH during a marvelous period in our history: the Cold War effectively ended and we slashed defense spending accordingly as the rise of agressive Islamic fundamentalism hadn't yet manifested itself in direct attacks on US interests.

In short, a even a chimpanzee in the White House during that era would have "left office with a balanced budget, and a federal government operating with a surplus."

We had a chimp in the White House two terms before Obama, and that buttscratcher upped the deficit to the tune of trillions of dollars. And made the aggressive Islamic fundamentalists even more pissed off by invading a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks while he was at it.

So much for the simian theory. succs

Yep, Clinton had it relatively easy, that's true. It's also quite likely that Clinton taxing the wealthiest percentage of the population to pay their fair share helped the country's debt and took pressure off the middle class so they could spend more and stimulate the economy. When the middle class prospers, so does the country. When the middle class suffers, so goeth the economy.

[Crucifax Autumn]

You know, I just read that full article and pretty much agree with everything.

I agree 100% that our attempt to stop housing price drops is stupid and destined to fail. It amazes me that these people now agree that we had an unprecedented bubble that eroded affordability yet they think that maintaining the house price is the correct action to take.

Nevertheless, I don't know what article you read but 90% of this article supports Obama's efforts at more regulation. It sure didn't read like a criticism of Obama to me.

That's how I took it too and aside from the TARP funds being used for the home buying credit and Making Home Affordable stuff, all the parts it really jumps on the most seem to be the ones enacted by Bush when he formally requested the first part of the TARP funds.

Seriously now...Obama has plenty of bad press and questionable decisions for us to slam him on. What's the point of acting indignant toward Obama over stupid **** Bush did?

Someone come up with something Obama actually did that really sucks and start a new thread. I'll be more than happy to join in on the bashing and make Barry roll over in his sleep wondering why his butt is sore. You guys all know there is plenty of stuff and you'd get further in your quest to turn his supporters against him with REAL problems.

[1890MilesToNorman]

I just want him to shut up and do nothing, adjourn congress and vacate Washington. I'd feel safe then.

[JLEW1818]

YES WE CAN

[RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!]

All Barry has to do is stop the pork-barrel and crony paybacks spending, lower taxes, and assure the American people they will stay lower, and abandon his great socialist schemes, for starters. Hell, if he did ANY of that, his popularity would spike.

[Collier11]

Nevertheless, I don't know what article you read but 90% of this article supports Obama's efforts at more regulation. It sure didn't read like a criticism of Obama to me.

I shouldve been more specific but I was drunk :D


All I was referring to was whether or not we should have given the bailouts, basically the very first sentence, lol

[Okla-homey]

Really? I thought he got elected on a wave of anti-Bush sentiment because the economy was tanking.

Not Clinton. But you nailed how BHO got elected.

[Frozen Sooner]

Not Clinton. But you nailed how BHO got elected.

Huh. So the unofficial Clinton campaign slogan WASN'T "It's the economy, stupid?"

We weren't in a recession during the last year of the Bush I administration?

Wow, I thought I lived through that.

[Collier11]

technically no I thought? :D

[Okla-homey]

We had a chimp in the White House two terms before Obama, and that buttscratcher upped the deficit to the tune of trillions of dollars. And made the aggressive Islamic fundamentalists even more pissed off by invading a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks while he was at it.

You forgot, a bunch of fundamentalist Islamo-a-holes flew airliners into buildings which forced us to war. Wars are very expensive. You can say what you want about W, but the fact is, he kept us safe. No Islamo-attacks here in the US on his watch. Not so for his successor.

So much for the simian theory. succs

Yep, Clinton had it relatively easy, that's true. It's also quite likely that Clinton taxing the wealthiest percentage of the population to pay their fair share helped the country's debt and took pressure off the middle class so they could spend more and stimulate the economy. When the middle class prospers, so does the country. When the middle class suffers, so goeth the economy.

Honest question: What's the line between middle-class and the "wealthiest percentage" of Americans?

[Frozen Sooner]

You forgot, a bunch of fundamentalist Islamo-a-holes flew airliners into buildings which forced us to war. Wars are very expensive. You can say what you want about W, but the fact is, he kept us safe. No Islamo-attacks here in the US on his watch. Not so for his successor.

Um. W was president on 9/11/2001. Just in case you forgot.

[JohnnyMack]

You forgot, a bunch of fundamentalist Islamo-a-holes flew airliners into buildings which forced us to war. Wars are very expensive. You can say what you want about W, but the fact is, he kept us safe. No Islamo-attacks here in the US on his watch. Not so for his successor.

Really Homey?

I keep thinking you're better than this.

[Okla-homey]

Um. W was president on 9/11/2001. Just in case you forgot.

You know what I meant. And the Al-Q was a heck of a lot stronger in the years immediatley follwing 9/11 than they are now. Notwithstanding that fact, BHO's bag of bumblers would have permitted the destruction of an airliner over a US city on Christmas but for the fact the underwear didn't explode.

[JohnnyMack]

You know what I meant. And the Al-Q was a heck of a lot stronger in the years immediatley follwing 9/11 than they are now. Notwithstanding that fact, BHO's bag of bumblers would have permitted the destruction of an airliner over a US city on Christmas but for the fact the underwear didn't explode.

*cough* Richard Reid *cough* *cough*

[Frozen Sooner]

No. I don't know what you meant. W had a significant terrorist action on US soil using airliners that were boarded in US airports. Obama had a guy who boarded a plane in the Netherlands without a passport try to set his undies on fire. That's a pretty big reach to say that W kept us safe from terrorists in the one instance while saying Obama hasn't in the second.

[Crucifax Autumn]

I shouldve been more specific but I was drunk :D


All I was referring to was whether or not we should have given the bailouts, basically the very first sentence, lol

But then, aside from the Detroit bailouts, does that really have to do with Obama?

[Crucifax Autumn]

Normally I don't take any overly partisan sides on these things, but in the late 90s Al Gore headed up a commision studying what should be done to increase airline security and safety. When the Gore commission report was brought to the republican congress the airline industry lobbyists went nuts trying to stop any of the suggestions in the report from being made ito law due to the expense to the industry.

Most of the suggestions were put into place after the 9/11 attacks claiming that that would make it much more difficult for similar attacks to occur again. Perhaps if they'd enacted them in the 90s when they were originally suggested the attacks would have been stopped. Obviously no one can no for sure, but it's worth thinking about.

[Collier11]

Did Obama not order all of the bailouts? I mustve been sleeping or something?

[Crucifax Autumn]

No, he didn't, though if he had it would make judging all this easier, same as if Bush was the one that ordered them all. The bank bailouts and most of the real estate stuff was Bush, and he had to file the formal request to congress to release TARP funds. The Auto industry and the rest of the real estate part was Obama, ho also had to request that congress release the funds. They share this one, though bailout-wise Bush gets most of the blame. As for the stimulus money it's the opposite, with some of the earlier things going on Bush, but Obama bearing the brunt of that with THE stimulus plan as Bush had just done small things and did them fairly late in the recession.

[GKeeper316]

Primarily coincedental because Clinton benefitted from being in the WH during a marvelous period in our history: the Cold War effectively ended and we slashed defense spending accordingly as the rise of agressive Islamic fundamentalism hadn't yet manifested itself in direct attacks on US interests.



uss cole?
wtc in 93?

im sure theres more, but those are the 2 that stand out in my mind.

[Crucifax Autumn]

Good point, but I think he was thinking more in terms of the fundamentalism getting to the point and scale it did later where a military response was more appropriate and thus led to the greater strain on the budget. But at the same time, the Bush era strain on the budget could have been avoided by trying to finish one war before choosing to start another as well as not blindly and idiologically cutting taxes in wartime.

Some day it will be universally accepted here that both sides do some good and both sides do some bad, and neither side is fully perfect or blameless nor is either side fully evil or wrong.

[Crucifax Autumn]

By the way...That second paragraph was a joke. The extremes will never believe that ****!

[Curly Bill]

Wow! So all of our recent Presidents were crap? What a surprise.

Now, you kids behave!

[GKeeper316]

Some day it will be universally accepted here that both sides do some good and both sides do some bad, and neither side is fully perfect or blameless nor is either side fully evil or wrong.

ha! what ****in fantasy world do you live in?????

im only joking :)

[King Barry's Back]

If Clinton benefitted from a post Reagan/GHWB reign, I suppose Obama can't be blamed from the mess W left. That's the way it works. Right?

A lot of what happens in economics and finance occurs over long-term trends lasting decades.

It is folly to "blame" one president and excuse another for events that occured that were almost completely beyond their control. (In fact, some of the trouble was pretty clear during the Clinton years, and probably before that -- we're talking like five presidents.)

HOWEVER (you knew a however was coming), while a particular policy challenge may not be the fault of a president, a president still can be, and should be, judged on how he deals with that challenge.

SO -- On "causing" the great financial meltdown, Obama gets a pass. On his handling of the issue, Obama gets a __________. (Feel free to fill that in.)

[Bourbon St Sooner]

That's an excellent article. Unfortunately, we've spent the last year trying to legislate Socialist Utopia rather than trying to fix the problems that caused the latest meltdown.

I'm glad that Obama has finally signed on to the Volcker rule, but I really think we need to break up these financial behemoths. Barney Frank's answer of codifying too big to fail is assinine. Obama needs to ditch Backdoor Bailout Timmy. How can anybody think he has the best interest of Main Street in mind after his handling of the AIG crony capitalism mess?

[1890MilesToNorman]

The only way for gubmint to create jobs and improve the economy is to get the hell out of the way!

Pretty simple formula.

[OklahomaTuba]

We had a chimp in the White House two terms before Obama, and that buttscratcher upped the deficit to the tune of trillions of dollars.

Just a quick reminder...

http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2009/03/21/GR2009032100104.gif

This needs updating, as 2010 looks to be WORSE than 2009.

Thanks Barry!

[OklahomaTuba]

The only way for gubmint to create jobs and improve the economy is to get the hell out of the way!

Pretty simple formula.

But I thought high-speed rail and free abortions for all would create green jobs?????

[RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!]

AS IF the president ACTUALLY WANTED TO IMPROVE THE ECONOMY...LMFAO!

[jkjsooner]

I'm glad that Obama has finally signed on to the Volcker rule, but I really think we need to break up these financial behemoths.

I agree 100% but can you imagine what RLIMC and Tuba will say if we dare attempt that?

This is where I have a problem. The President can't regulate or break up the banks or he's some sort of communist. He can't exercise control over the banks that received BILLIONS in govt funds to keep them out of bankruptcy or he's a communist. Even bailing out the banks means he's a communist.

The only proper course of action was to allow cascading bank failures and the destruction of our financial system. Anyone want to guess what RLIMC and Tuba would have said had we allowed that to happen?

[GKeeper316]

I agree 100% but can you imagine what RLIMC and Tuba will say if we dare attempt that?

they will just recite the same tired line of bull**** about how it isnt the fault of the mom and pop corporate banking conglomerate...

seriously... these guys have enough money THEY could pay down the national debt with the money they stole from the middle class, but they wont. they need more private planes and multi million dollar corporate retreats.

[Tulsa_Fireman]

I wish I had private planes and multi-million dollar corporate retreats so poor middle class peons could bitch about my fat wallet.

Word. And then I'd fire all of them and move to Whore Island and bang like the wind.

[Frozen Sooner]

Heh. Whore Island. That show is greatness.

[RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!]

Heh. Whore Island. That show is greatness.a documentary on Gaystin?

[Veritas]

How do we filter out the teases? We don't let them in. This goes for the guys, too. Because sometimes the guys are tapped out. But check your lease, man. Because you're living in **** City!

[Frozen Sooner]

a documentary on Gaystin?

Er, what?

No, Archer.

[OU_Sooners75]

kinda didnt have a choice, if you recall correctly.

and lets not forget that under the clinton administration, the us economy saw its largest period of growth since the 50s, and left office with a balanced budget, and a federal government operating with a surplus

That is news to me! From the looks of it, he baselined it, but did not balance it.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5656



No, Bill Clinton Didn't Balance the Budget

by Stephen Moore

Stephen Moore is director of fiscal policy studies at the Cato Institute.
Added to cato.org on October 8, 1998

Let us establish one point definitively: Bill Clinton didn't balance the budget. Yes, he was there when it happened. But the record shows that was about the extent of his contribution.

Many in the media have flubbed this story. The New York Times on October 1st said, "Clinton balances the budget." Others have praised George Bush. Political analyst Bill Schneider declared on CNN that Bush is one of "the real heroes" for his willingness to raise taxes -- and never mind read my lips. (Once upon a time, lying was something that was considered wrong in Washington, but under the last two presidents our standards have dropped.) In any case, crediting George Bush for the end of the deficit requires some nifty logical somersaults, since the deficit hit its Mount Everest peak of $290 billion in St. George's last year in office.

And 1993 -- the year of the giant Clinton tax hike -- was not the turning point in the deficit wars, either. In fact, in 1995, two years after that tax hike, the budget baseline submitted by the president's own Office of Management and Budget and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted $200 billion deficits for as far as the eye could see. The figure shows the Clinton deficit baseline. What changed this bleak outlook?

Newt Gingrich and company (republicans) -- for all their faults -- have received virtually no credit for balancing the budget. Yet today's surplus is, in part, a byproduct of the GOP's single-minded crusade to end 30 years of red ink. Arguably, Gingrich's finest hour as Speaker came in March 1995 when he rallied the entire Republican House caucus behind the idea of eliminating the deficit within seven years. Skeptics said it could not be done in seven years. The GOP did it in four.

Now let us contrast this with the Clinton fiscal record. Recall that it was the Clinton White House that fought Republicans every inch of the way in balancing the budget in 1995. When Republicans proposed their own balanced-budget plan, the White House waged a shameless Mediscare campaign to torpedo the plan -- a campaign that the Washington Post slammed as "pure demagoguery." It was Bill Clinton who, during the big budget fight in 1995, had to submit not one, not two, but five budgets until he begrudgingly matched the GOP's balanced-budget plan. In fact, during the height of the budget wars in the summer of 1995, the Clinton administration admitted that "balancing the budget is not one of our top priorities."

And lest we forget, it was Bill Clinton and his wife who tried to engineer a federal takeover of the health care system -- a plan that would have sent the government's finances into the stratosphere. Tom Delay was right: for Clinton to take credit for the balanced budget is like (then) Chicago Cubs pitcher Steve Trachsel taking credit for delivering the pitch to Mark McGuire that he hit out of the park for his 62nd home run.

The figure shows that the actual cumulative budget deficit from 1994 to 1998 was almost $600 billion below the Clintonomics baseline. Part of the explanation for the balanced budget is that Republicans in Congress had the common sense to reject the most reckless features of Clintonomics. Just this year(1998), Bill Clinton's budget proposed more than $100 billion in new social spending -- proposals that were mostly tossed overboard. It's funny, but back in January the White House didn't seem too concerned about saving the surplus for "shoring up Social Security."

Now for the bad news for GOP partisans. The federal budget has not been balanced by any Republican spending reductions. Uncle Sam now (1998) spends $150 billion more than in 1995. Over the past 10 years, the defense budget, adjusted for inflation, has been cut $100 billion, but domestic spending has risen by $300 billion.

We have a balanced budget today that is mostly a result of 1) an exceptionally strong economy that is creating gobs of new tax revenues and 2) a shrinking military budget. Social spending is still soaring and now costs more than $1 trillion. Is this the kind of balanced budget that fiscal conservatives want? A budget with no deficit, but that funds the biggest government ever?

So the budget is balanced, but now comes the harder part: cutting the budget. Bill Clinton has laid down a marker in the political debate with his "save Social Security first," gambit. That theme should be turned against him and his government expansionist agenda. Congress should respond: No new government programs until we have fixed Social Security. This means no IMF bailouts. No new day care subsidies. No extending Medicare coverage to 55-year-olds. (Honestly, if Clinton has his way, it won't be long till teenagers are eligible for Medicare.)

The budget surpluses over the next five years could easily exceed $500 billion. Leaving all of that extra money lying around within the grasp of vote-buying politicians is an invitation to financial mischief. If Congress and the president use the surpluses to fund a new spending spree, we may find that surpluses are more a curse than a blessing. FYI: This article appeared on cato.org (http://www.cato.org/) on October 8, 1998.

[OU_Sooners75]

Really? I thought he got elected on a wave of anti-Bush sentiment because the economy was tanking.


It was...thanks to the first Gulf war.

However, the economy was nowhere near the shape it is in now.

[Crucifax Autumn]

The first Gulf War had barely any effect on the economy at the time. And at that time, the biggest contributor to Clinton's win was economics and how in touch the candidates were. "It's the economy stupid" was almost the entirety of Clinton's campaign, proving that simplicity of message is almost always the winning strategy and about half of why both Gore and Kerry lost. Being all over the place in message is almost always a losing strategy up until last year. Of ourse somehow Obama managed to do both by having the simple "hope and change" silliness, but somehow simultaneously listing 5000 other items he was campaigning on and in so doing doomed his presidency even if he had been moderately successfull since, as the SO demonstrates, we can bust him on a campaign promise per day.

But back to Clinton/Bush...

regular people were hurting a bit at that time, particularly the shrinking middle class which had previously been pretty firmly in the Reagan/Bush corner. Under Reagan the trickle down policy and the tax cutting (some of which was real and some of which was a snow job) worked great for several reasons, like Reagan's charisma, his ability to speak broadly to people, and most of all, the fact that his policies either solidly worked or in other cases appeared to on the surface. By the time Bush beat Dukakis and he was a year into his term, some aspects of Reaganomics were falling apart due largely to a changing world. Where Reagan would have got people together and tweaked policies to actually address this (he was actually smart enough to recognize when something needed to be done differently) Bush just kept on with his anti tax attitudes and tried to keep the same policies intact despite reality staring him in the face.

By the time he realized he had to do something, the Democratic congress did what democratic congresses do and chose to throw money at the problem and forced Bush to go against his no new taxes pledge, most likely DOOMING his hopes for re-election since he didn't explain himself in a way that the people would buy.

If that didn't lose it for him, he than made many of the same mistakes McCain made last time around. He acted like the economy was "funamentally sound" which the people in the trenches knew wasn't true. He then also suffered a fair amount of damage over the silly report that he'd never seen a supermarket scanner (in reality, he'd commented on being amazed by the technology he saw at a Grocers association convention. The particular scanner in question was "amazing" since it could better read bar codes that were a bit screwed up.) The media and the Clinton AND Perot campaigns seized on this false report to paint Bush as "out of touch" with ordinary Americans (Particularly funny coming from Perot!).

While false, the story stuck and then (I think it was in one of the debates) that question came up about the price of a gallon of milk. Obviously it's one of those "gotcha" moments in politics, but when Bush couldn't answer it added to the "out of touch" perception started with the scanner incident. Not knowing the answer (or just bumbling it, whichever is true) caused a serious dent in Bush's appeal to women and lower income people who either got reminded of this every week or, in the case of the low income people, had to figure into their tight budgets.

So while Froze is correct about the economy being a large factor, nothing is ever as simple as his statement in the world of presidential politics.

And I realize I have oversimplified it myself, I just wanted to make the point without making this post a 5000 word essay on the '92 election.

[OU_Sooners75]

Too late on the 5000 word essay.

[Crucifax Autumn]

Not even...There was A LOT more I could have added to that just from memory. Remember this was shortly after my college years and from 87 when I graduated high school to about 5 years after college I was a politics junkie from hell. In fact, it's the only thing that competed with writing my own things and reading constantly that competed for my time.

[Crucifax Autumn]

No more spek for you! :P

[RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!]

The MSM won the presidency for Clinton. Bush wasn't principled enough, passionate enough, nor a good enough speaker, to overcome them.