Capital Commerce

More On Bush, Bailouts, And Obama

June 9, 2009 RSS Feed Print

More people are glossing over Bush's role in the Detroit bailouts. Liberal media group Media Matters takes the Politico to task for leaving out Bush in an article on Obama and GM.

The gist of the Politico article:

The GOP sees President Barack Obama’s decision to help the unpopular carmaker as an easy opportunity to paint him as a bailout-happy, deficit-drunk spendthrift eager to impose a heavy government hand on a swath of industries.

But as a I pointed out yesterday, this criticism is hard to take seriously if you actually recall Bush's economic policies. "Bailout-happy, deficit-drunk spendthrift" is not an accusation the Republicans can make without it being pointed right back at them.

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I concur with Muser. A forum in which progressives and conservatives could hold an intellectually honest debate about economics would be welcomed.
Folks re the "bailouts" seem to forget very quickly the context of only a few months ago. The fact that GM and Chysler have been able to go bankrupt without dragging the rest of the tottering economy into the toilet with them is a great accomoplishment.
Mr. Bandyk,
btw as far as topics go, anything on fiscal responsibility is welcome. There is a huge difference between Hooverian economics of contracting spending amidst a global contraction and creating longer-term policies to address our fiscal challenges. Bridging those schools of thought would be useful. tx

chi democrat of IL 2:24PM June 09, 2009

USNWR made a very good decision for its Capital Commerce section by placing Matt Bandyk in the former position of Jimmy P. here. With Jimmy, this kind of balanced question would never have been raised in this space.
That said, the deficit and regulatory problems we now deal with were not merely George W. Bush. They were rooted in the era of Ronald Reagan and decades since.
We have a lot of people in this country who have made and are making enormous amounts of money in ways that should have been taxed at about 80% all along. You can start with the CEO compensation packages that encouraged CEOs to play for themselves rather than for all the stakeholders of their companies and their country. Tell me WHY, once again, that they paid Bob Nardelli, the CEO of Home Depot, $240 million to quit, and he got to keep that money (?). Tell me WHY another board then hired him to run Chrysler (?). Tell me WHY you didn't have CEOs' millions taxed to the moon at Enron, Worldcom, GM, AIG, Fannie, Freddie, Citigroup, etc., to PREVENT the self-serving decisions made at those places (?), so you wouldn't have to do these bailouts.

Muser of NM 1:14PM June 09, 2009

Well, yes, but the really sad part is that Obama is managing to make Bush look like a miser by comparison. Bush set the bar pretty low and yet Obama still struggles to vault this minimum hurdle.

Colin of DC 12:56PM June 09, 2009

More On Bush, Bailouts, And Obama

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