Blame Bush

Americans weren't really suffering from job loss until 2008 and that was towards teh end of the year. Prior to that the unemployment rate stayed consistently around 5% never exceeding 6%.

Taskr, what were his UNDER EMPLOYMENT numbers?

What escalates out sourcing is corporate tax. Did Bush increase tax on corporations?

Best Boy, here is a nice article for you to read about what REALLY happens to Social Security http://www.allenwsmith.com/id5.html. You can spin the Bush tax cuts all you want, and all of the great things that happened, but you when all is said and done history only looks at the end result. Again, a net 1 Million jobs, and the worse economy the country had seen in at least 30 years. You can put lipstick on a Pig, but it is till a Pig Best!!!! If you want to know what regulations were softened, then look at the Bush energy bill. Look at this link for a few: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0523-02.htm The energy will was written by the energy companies that donated money to certain republican candidates in exchange for a seat at the table. Here is a link for you: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=7309 Demand from other countries wasn't big enough for the prices to go as high as they did, and blaming the EPA is the old trick in the book. The FACT is that the market was manipulated by people like T. Boone Pickens, and hedge funds that saw away to make a quick billion or two. The problem with the oil market was that you only had to put 5% down, so you could by $1 Million dollars worth of oil, and only had to put $50,000 down. Also look up the ICE market, and see how that influenced the market if you really want to know what happened. So you see that Bush saw this crisis coming years before it hit, and did nothing at all to stop it. Remember, the president of the United States of American, is the most powerful man in the world. If he can't stop something, than NO ONE could!!!! You are correct that Congress didn't do much, but his party controlled the entire government for two years, and did NOTHING!!!!!

The Social Security Administration is legally required to take all its surpluses and buy U.S. Government securities, and the U.S. Government readily sells those securities--which automatically and immediately becomes intragovernmental holdings. About Bush's tax breaks - Data from the end of 2001 to the latest recession bear this out. The economy started expanding again in the fourth quarter of 2001 and grew for 25 consecutive quarters. After enactment of the 2003 tax cut, which lowered the marginal effective tax rate on new investment, gross domestic product surged 7.5% in the third quarter, the fastest pace since 1984. And for 26 straight months unemployment stayed below 5%. The Bush tax cuts also led to increases in tax revenues, and after 2004 the revenues grew faster than the economy. The ratio of tax receipts to GDP rose to 18.8% in 2007, above the 40-year average, and the deficit was just 1.2% of GDP. From 2004 to 2008, capital gains realizations grew by 60%; from 2004 to 2007, corporate tax receipts nearly doubled, adding a full point to the revenues-to-GDP ratio. From Investor’s Business Daily. He pushed for softer regulations on what? Would that energy bill written by energy companies be anything like the stimulus bill written by the Apollo Alliance which was co-founded by Van Jones, the man Obama appointed Green Jobs Czar? Demand from developing countries such as India and China and environmental policies that deny us to drill also had a hand in the increase of oil prices. Bush started talking about the housing crisis in 2001. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM The Congress didn't make much of an effort to do anything about the housing crisis either.

"That pig with lipstick didn't come onto the scene until 2007 when the democrats got control of Congress, and now they have control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency and things just keep getting worse." LMFAO, you think that seven years of tax cut, spend like drunken sailors, and little to no regulations helped the country? Best, I hope you live in California, because in every other state you are going to jail for what you are smoking. "Thank you for the link you posted regarding softened regulations. So Bush had the audacity to bring in people who actually knew something about the areas they would be overseeing. Imagine, bringing in someone who actually knows the business. To what is the world coming?" LMFAOA, so you would hire a fox to guard the hen house then? The only smart thing that Bush did when it came to his hiring of regulators was NOT hiring Ken Lay as his head of the department of energy (which was VERY close to happening). Best, If Reaganomics was the great economic idea in history, then why did the recession last longer than the expansion? Ask Bush Sr. how easy it is to fix a complete economic mess, and his was no where near as bad as this. Remember, that greatest republican president that ever lived didn't fix the somewhat similar recession in one year. If it is never any one persons fault, then please explain Jimmy Carter?

If you are 58, I am not far behind you at 54. For you not to be aware of what was going on from 2000 - 2008, all I can say is you are not reading the right things. Before I start, let me say - I am a Republican and I voted for Bush in 2000. By 2002, I could already see the problems his administration was creating and/or making worse. 2004, I voted Democrat to try to prevent him from causing further damage. Sadly, I and millions of other American failed - we were not voting for Kerry, we were voting against Bush. Your first two questions would take me forever to research because most of the articles are buried in newspaper archives and on-line archives (or have been deleted from the Internet due to limited space on servers). If you have the time, go ahead and do the research - look under "business", "politics" and "government" headlines from 2000 - 2008 - you will find plenty. There were already some questionable mortgage practices in place; but, his administration was pushing to increase the "zero-down" mortgages in order to make more people homeowners (whether they could afford to pay a mortgage and the upkeep for a home) and it was during his time in office that the "interest only" mortgages with the balloon pay off came into being along with some mortgages where the first few years payments were actually LESS than the amount of the interest so the loan amount was actually increasing instead of decreasing and then in 3 - 5 yrs time the loan would readjust to start paying off the inflated mortgage amount (principle plus interest) at rates the homeowner could not possibly pay. Then, when they tried to refinance, they could not afford to refinance because it was still more than they had been paying originally. Pollution has been around for decades and I did not say that "pollution" was Bush's fault. His "fault" was in - 1) Permitting new types of mining like "mountain top removal" and allowing the mining companies to dump everything in the valleys and streams below the mountain tops including many toxic substances. 2) Opening up "oil sands" for development even though this specific type of oil production has many more toxic waste products than conventional drilling. 3) Reducing funds and manpower in the agencies tasked with reducing or monitoring sources of pollution (EPA and OSHA). 4) Granting companies immunity to environmental oversight, when environmental groups were seeking to get the companies to, as a minimum, do an environmental impact study before starting operations in new areas. An impact study does no good after the fact. 5) Declaring that streams and small bodies of water are exempt from clean water standards even when they empty directly into major lakes and rivers that are used for public drinking water. "link about oil companies understating output" - sure - this has been going on since before Bush was President and when it was brought to his attention he refused to take any action against companies where audits showed that this was occurring and he decreased the number of auditors, replaced auditors who were too vocal about it, and let it be known that he did not want certain companies to be bothered with audits. http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files/reports/natural-resources/drilling-the-taxpayer/nr-rik-20080918.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-colby/drilling-would-help-no-on_b_131781.html http://www.citizen.org/cmep/article_redirect.cfm?ID=13980 There are a lot more because this is an ongoing problem that is still happening today. And, Obama has done nothing about this either since he took office!

Could you give me an example of the policies that enabled big business to practices that hurt our economy? Which laws and regulations were weakened and how did this help businesses but hurt the citizens? Was it really Bush that caused the questionable mortgage practices or were they already in place when he came into office? Pollution has been a part of our nation since before I was born, and I'm 58. How is that Bush's fault? Could you give me a link about oil companies understating output?

True. Some are no longer buying it, though, or are saying Obama is making a bad situation worse.

I believe you and I hear it's going to get even worse.

Blaming Bush may be a distraction at first, but after a while, people are going to start noticing things aren't getting any better, in spite of Obama's plans. Many are already noticing.