S'funny that you guys are so concerned with this now..but not during the Bush administration. Lots of people lost their jobs..but never went on unemployment.
"The
recession President Bush inherited as he entered office ran through the attacks of September 11, 2001, but during the
recovery that followed, and due in no small part to the tax relief President Bush worked with Congress to provide, this country experienced its longest run of uninterrupted job growth - 52 straight months, with 8.3 million jobs created.
This reflected
six consecutive years of economic growth from the Fourth Quarter of 2001 until the Fourth Quarter of 2007. From 2000 to 2007,
real GDP grew by more than 17 percent, a remarkable gain of nearly 2.1 trillion dollars. This growth was driven in part by increased labor
productivity gains that have averaged 2.5 percent annually since 2001, a rate that exceeds the averages of the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. In the same period, real after-tax
income per capita increased by more than 11 percent, and there was a
4.7 percent increase in the number of new businesses formed. The current economic challenges, which the President and his Administration have responded to aggressively, threaten to reverse some of these gains - but the gains cannot be denied.
As for the current crisis, the President and his economic team have taken unprecedented actions to stabilize the financial sector and avert a collapse. While there are a number of causes of the housing and credit crises that are at the root of our current economic troubles, deregulation by the Bush Administration is simply not one of them. In fact, one of the circumstances that contributed to the crisis was
the failure of the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which President Bush long tried to subject to greater regulation. In April 2001, three months after taking office, the President
warned in his first budget that the size of the two GSEs were a "potential problem" that "could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting Federally insured entities and economic activity."
In 2003, the Administration began calling for a new GSE regulator, and over the next five years, the Administration continued to call for GSE reform only to be accused by Democrats in Congress of creating artificial fears and advocating for ill-advised proposals. By the time Congress finally acted in 2008 to provide the oversight the President requested, it was too late to prevent systemic consequences. Had the Administration's initial reform proposals been adopted, some of today's turmoil in our financial markets may have been averted."
RealClearPolitics - Articles - Myths & Facts About the Real Bush Record
I earnestly look forward to the day when you evince some real knowledge, rather than partisan propaganda...
but then, I am the eternal optimist.
