What the Democrats have done in 4 years of control

This was pointed out today and I never realized how bad the out of control, unpaid for spending is since Pelosi and Reid took over. The last year that the Republicans were in control in congress, which was 2006, the deficit was $164 billion. Since Pelosi and Reid have taken over and written all the policies and spending bills, the deficit has grown every year and is now 9 times as large of a deficit in one year up to $1.3 trillion dollars. And when all numbers are added up it may be closer to $1.6 trillion which is 10 times what it was in the final year that the Republicans were in charge of spending and the budget. The Democrats were outraged then with $164 billion deficit in 2006 but they seem to be OK with 10 times that amount in 2010, when it has done nothing to help our economy.

Clearly Bush's fault for 2 of those four years. "W" couldn't find his veto pen. Or maybe he was splitting the spending kickbacks with Nancy & Harry?

Specifically, what did the democrats do that Bush didn't support?

And we still had two very expensive wars going on which got started well before the dems took over congress.

BTW, how did the dems take over congress? Yes, I'll blame it on the failures of Bush and the republican congress. The American people voted out the republican congress. If you think Obama's popularity is low, Bush would of loved to have those numbers his last 4 years.

pineinthegrass wrote: Specifically, what did the democrats do that Bush didn't support?

And we still had two very expensive wars going on which got started well before the dems took over congress.

BTW, how did the dems take over congress? Yes, I'll blame it on the failures of Bush and the republican congress. The American people voted out the republican congress. If you think Obama's popularity is low, Bush would of loved to have those numbers his last 4 years.

That is why I did not support Bush's decisions the last couple years. What did the Democrats do? They drove the deficit through the roof with one bill and Bush should have vetoed it. It started out with a 3 page bill from the treasury at well under $100 billion to just help out the banks. When congress got ahold of it and added all of their pork, it grew to 110 pages. Then Reid and the Senate got ahold of it and knew the Banks needed some help and that Bush couldn't veto it so they added enough pork to hit over 450 pages and it grew to $700 billion. What was the deficit that year? Just over $400 billion. What put them over the top and into the red? All of the Democrats pork they put in a simple 3 page bill to help out the banks. Bush should have never signed it. It started Ried and Pelosi on a money hungry greedy power spending spree that we can't stop until we vote them out of office.

You are really going to ask what they did? They started this downhill slide into the red and they refuse to stop. $700 billion was unheard of up to that point, but now it is one of the smaller bills this congress has passed.They are the total reason we went from a deficit of only $164 billion when the Republicans left office to the point where we are losing over $1.3 trillion dollars a year for two years now and it won't go under $1 trillion dollar loss per year for a few more years. That is so unheard of but somehow half of America thinks it is OK now compared to the 1/10th that Bush was in the red.

pineinthegrass wrote: Specifically, what did the democrats do that Bush didn't support?

And we still had two very expensive wars going on which got started well before the dems took over congress.

BTW, how did the dems take over congress? Yes, I'll blame it on the failures of Bush and the republican congress. The American people voted out the republican congress. If you think Obama's popularity is low, Bush would of loved to have those numbers his last 4 years.

And you guys keep bringing up the wars. Are you kidding me? They figure the 9/11 attack cost this country over $1 Trillion dollars in one day. That almost beats Obamas record. There has not been one attack since we started these wars. The total cost of both wars since 9/11. almost 9 years, is just over $1 trillion. One attack on our soil would have set us back more than that. And on top of that we now have at least one more ally in the Middle East and freed over 26 million people in Iraq and are working on another 25 million in Afghanistan.

Now let's look at the flip side. Obama has spent between the stimulus, which has been proven a failure, the 2nd bank bailout, the disastrous healthcare bill, cash for clunkers, the auto bailout, the next stimulus they are trying to pass, and many others, he has spent over $3 trillion in just 18 months and even though he promised that it would keep down unemployment and create millioins of jobs, all it got us was higher unemployment and we have lost over 2 million more jobs since he took our money, and with that he gave us a debt that we will never be able to pay back, and coming soon to your pocket, much higher taxes and healthcare costs. You really want to compare all the crap Obama has wasted our money on, to the two wars that have cost 1/3 in 9 years of what Obama flushed down the toilet in 18 months? And that isn't even counting all the pork the Democraticly controlled congress passed in the final months of the Bush administration which as I said before, he should have never signed. But that is another $700 billion on this Democratic Congress so we are now getting up to $4 trillion. Not even a close contest.

And remember that most Democrats voted for these wars too. SO if you look at all the votes on the trillions of dollars of spending includint the wars, the Democrats haven't said no to hardly anything. In fact they keep piling pork on every bill to make sure they get all of their pat projects in.

First of all, I misread Viking's post. I guess SS109's reply got me to thinking Viking was blaming the democratic congress and not the Bush administration for the large increase in the deficit that began under the Bush administration and continues to widely expand today. Now I'm not sure if he was or not. His post was more about increases in the deficit since the democrats took over, both during Bush and especially under Obama.

Anyway, we did get into other areas perhaps outside the OP based on my response. But I guess I'll comment on some of it.

So far as TARP goes, I think it was necessary. I did believe our leadership (much of it from the Bush administration) that we were facing a financial catastrophe and a possible depression. The whole credit market was disappearing. The formation of bill itself was led mainly by the Bush administration, specifically by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The bill did get modified in congress (not unusual), but mainly in order to get it to pass because it originaly failed. And once it passed, the decisions on who got the money rested mainly on the Treasury Secretary, not the democrats.

http://www.wikinvest.com/wiki/Troubled_Assets_Relief_Program_(TARP)

And I think a good case could be made that TARP has actually been working. It did include provisions that much of the money eventually be paid back (unlike the stimulus bill). Originally, the $700 billion bill was projected to cost $356 billion, but now it's projected to cost $89 billion because financial institutions have been paying the money back. That's 42% of the previous big financial crisis, the Savings & Loan crisis, which was bailed out by the H. W. Bush administration. Another little tidbit...

On December 19, 2008, President Bush used his executive authority to declare that TARP funds may be spent on any program he personally deems necessary to avert the financial crisis. This has allowed President Bush to extend the use of TARP funds to support the auto industry, a move supported by the United Auto Workers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program

So far as the deficits go, spending is a big part of it. But the recession, which began in December 2007 (can you blame democrats for that?), is one of the main causes. Also the mortgage crisis, which had it's beginnings with policies under Clinton in the 1990's (like the bi-partisian repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act) continuing unabated during the Bush administration, was a big factor.

So far as the wars go, I still haven't seen a case to convince me that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. We went there for WMDs, and to dispose Saddam. I think it's too early to tell if the new Iraq is going to make the Middle East any more stable, or make us any safer. Yes, we haven't had a major attack on American soil since 9/11, but I think the main reason is increased security, plus a lot of luck. I don't see how the Iraq war had anything to do with it. But let's face it, another major attack will probably eventually happen (and already has if you include the Hasan shooting, though it may of been more an individual rather than coordinated attack).

And it's a very tough task to say just what the 9/11 attack cost us. I've seen many different numbers. But to get to $1 trillion, I think you have to include at least the cost to start the wars.

The Viking wrote: This was pointed out today and I never realized how bad the out of control, unpaid for spending is since Pelosi and Reid took over. The last year that the Republicans were in control in congress, which was 2006, the deficit was $164 billion. Since Pelosi and Reid have taken over and written all the policies and spending bills, the deficit has grown every year and is now 9 times as large of a deficit in one year up to $1.3 trillion dollars. And when all numbers are added up it may be closer to $1.6 trillion which is 10 times what it was in the final year that the Republicans were in charge of spending and the budget. The Democrats were outraged then with $164 billion deficit in 2006 but they seem to be OK with 10 times that amount in 2010, when it has done nothing to help our economy.

I think that's what you get in a two party system, two extremes. Hopefully a candidate will come forth who can stop the bleeding (deficit, recession, taxes and social issues), but I don't see that ever happening as there is no such thing as non-partisan politics.

ExtremeModerate wrote:
I think that's what you get in a two party system, two extremes. Hopefully a candidate will come forth who can stop the bleeding (deficit, recession, taxes and social issues), but I don't see that ever happening as there is no such thing as non-partisan politics.

I don't even see it as "two extremes". In fact, I can hardly tell the difference between the Bush administration and the Obama administration when you ignore all the rhetoric and look at the facts.

The Viking wrote: when it has done nothing to help our economy.

Where can I find some backup data to substaniate this? The other way to look at this is that if you are pumping water out of a sinking boat may look like it's doing nothing for the boat, but it is keeping it from sinking.

AspenValley wrote: I don't even see it as "two extremes". In fact, I can hardly tell the difference between the Bush administration and the Obama administration when you ignore all the rhetoric and look at the facts.

I see that they both have their "Party Line" which they can't cross. And as neither party seems to tolerate any listening to the other party and/or (God forbid) changing their stance, the line in the sand gets moved a little more to the right and a little more to the left (look at the Mosque thread). Each party moves closer and closer to the extreme. But how they go about moving their agendas forward and slinging mud at the other party is exactly the same.

I wonder when a viable third party will show up. Perot almost did it....