George W. Bush inherited a strong economy, a budget surplus, and a nation at peace.
Eight years later, he left Obama with a shattered economy, a trillion dollar deficit, and two useless wars.
Obama saved the country from another Great Depression, rebuilt GM, reformed healthcare, reformed Wall Street, doubled the stock market, created 16 straight quarters of GDP growth, created 50 months of private sector job growth, got Bin Laden, got Gaddafi, and got us out of Iraq.
Obama has done a very good job.
Oh ... and a Democrat Congress (many of whom voted for Iraq) had much to do with getting America into debt and stuffing Wall Street pockets with big money in the first bailout. Now, a term-and-a-half later and things are even worse than when Bama took office. So ... time to stop blaming the old administration. That was a looonnnnggg time ago. Try to focus on the hear and now and the major failures and shortcomings of the current administration (not to mention the endless scandals and habitual lies).
80% of our National Debt was created by Reagan and the two Bushes. Reagan tripled the National Debt, W Bush gave away the Clinton surplus, gave a huge tax cuts to the rich, passed a trillion dollar unfunded prescription drug bill for seniors, borrowed trillions to fight two wars, and created the largest government buildup since WW II.
Who controls the spending? Congress does. Did you know that?
Our system of government, the President has absolutely no ability to control what the government does, or does not, spend money on.
That's one of the reasons during the Iraq war, when Democrats got control of government, they were pushing to cut the spending. Because if Congress cuts the spending, the war is over. Period.
If they vote to cut spending for the war, the troops would come home, and there is not one thing Bush, or any president, could do about it.
When you look at the 1980s, the revenue into the government doubled.
So the amount of money to spend, was twice what is was before.
How did we end up with debt, when revenue doubled? Democrats in Congress spent even more than double.
Similarly, when Clinton became president, he proposed plans for government stimulus, and government health care.
If you look at Clinton's presidential budgets from 1993, 94, 95, 96, Clinton never once even attempted to cut the deficit. Every single budget Clinton produced, included increased deficits into, and throughout the 2000s.
But in 1994, Republicans got control of Congress. They had the 'contract with America' which included cutting the deficit. And sure enough, they cut spending on every single Clinton budget, and there was NOTHING Clinton could do about it.
The huge deficits, for the most part, have all been due to Democrats in congress. And the closest we ever got to a balanced budget, was due to Republicans.
The exception, was the 2003 war. War always results in deficits. But after 2005, the deficit fell every single year until 2008. Before the economic crash, the deficit was only $170 Billion. When Obama and the Democrats had power in 2009, '10 '11 '12, we had Trillion dollar deficits.
And unlike the prior presidents which tried to limit spending when we had extreme deficits, Obama openly pushed to spend more, with stimulus and health care spending.
You don't have a good position to make an argument on this topic.
