Do republicans have selective amnesia when it comes to the deficit?

The fact is Bush and the Republican Congress abandoned the conservative principles that Republicans are supposed to stand for. There is a huge difference between what true conservatives believe in and what the Republicans did. I am glad that at least now they are trying to stop even more wasteful spending. No amnesia here.

I think they have selective memory going back to the Reagan years. They seem to think that our current financial crises started with Clinton and although they are sometimes willing to not let Bush I & 11 off the hook, they hold Reagan on a pedestal. Truth is it was Reagan who appointed Greenspan and Reagan who was the first to gut the banking regs that led immediately to the Keating scandal. Those same regs were later completely repealed under Clinton but they should never have been tampered with in the first place.

I'll say they do, they cannot remember how, when, or why the economic crisis started.

I certainly don't have selective amnesia. There is no question that Bush was terrible at managing the economy and congress did a piss poor job as well. There is also no question that the debt didn't get completely out of control until the democrats took control of congress. It went up by almost 3 trillion after the first 6 years, and over 2 trillion in two years AFTER democrats took control of congress. I don't know any republicans outside of our corrupt politicians, who supported that bailout. Even though Bush and Paulson pushed it, the majority of democrats in congress supported it and the majority of republicans opposed it. Obama and Biden both supported and voted for it so they can't pretend that they had nothing to do with it now. That's almost as lame as them claiming this new $410 billion spending bill is "last year's business". Regardless of how Bush screwed up, Obama has still given us a deficit that is almost 4 times the biggest deficit Bush produced and he's done it in less than 2 months. Criticizing Bush won't change that. It just shows how low you are willing to set the bar for him.

Yep, many seem to. Bush, Paulson and Berneke and that damnable TARP? anyone? *crickets* hmmmmm That bill was orchestrated by the top 3 I mentioned and then voted for by Obama, McCain and a large majority of both parties. The tactics used to get it passed were remenicent of totalitarian tactics of hitler and stalin, with out right threats of martial law in a few meetings. It was a disgrace and everyone responsable and who put their signature on it aught to be investigated and charged.

What you are forgetting is 9/11 and Katrina(and a couple of other natural disasters) and keeping the country safe that contributed to the necessary spending.

If I remember the first TARP bill was two (2) pages long and it was defeated by congress and the Democrats put together a comprimise bill that was several hundred pages long and with thier majority it passed. This was rushed through as the press and most politicians were yelling that the end was near and we had to act NOW. Many consertives were calling for increased protection the depositers through the FDIC and let the banks fail and the investers lose. It was Congress - Republicans and Democrats - who wanted to do somethng. The leaders of the consertive movement were calling for restraint and critizing President Bush for growing the budget and the governmnet.

Selective amnesia, double standards, whatever other words you can think of to describe our political leaders both parties have been guilty of it but the current Republicans are possibly the most guilty ever. On top of that, they're like a broken record; tax cuts for the rich and cuts in services for the poor is the only thing they've ever proposed and they haven't worked, yet they now want more of the same. Annie

Thegreatdebater, Talk about selective memory! Sure, it was a republican president that pushed for TARP and I personally disagreed with that, but, without a DEMOCRATIC congress, it just doesn't get done! Obama and the dems were frothing at the mouth to get this measure passed and then let's not forget that the new president and his minions in congress have (in less than 2 months) increased the budget deficit by over a TRILLION dollars and mostly with things that were un-necessary! PORK pure and simple! Everything that has been done so far, in the name of the economy, by both administrations, Bush AND Obama, have been to the detriment and harm of the American economy! The sad part is, if they had just done nothing, we would be no worse off and much much better off without the added debt!