The day the democrats took over was not January 22nd 2009, it was actually
January 3rd 2007 the day the Democrats took over the House of
Representatives and the Senate, at the very start of the 110th Congress.
The Democrat Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time
since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995.
For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that
everything is "Bush's Fault", think about this:
January 3rd, 2007 was the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the
Congress. At the time:
The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77
The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%
The Unemployment rate was 4.6%
George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB
GROWTH
Remember the day...
January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House
Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking
Committee.
The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the
economy?
BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!
Unemployment... to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6
TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac FIASCOES!
Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie - starting in 2001
because it was financially risky for the US economy.
And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac?
OBAMA
And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie?
OBAMA and the Democrat Congress
So when someone tries to blame Bush...
REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007.... THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!"
Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for 2008 & 2009 as
well as 2010 &2011.
In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them
to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on
spending increases.
For 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely,
passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama
could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill
to complete the 2009 budgets.
And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very
Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the
omnibus bill as President to complete 2009.
If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the 2007 deficit, the last of
the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the
fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in
Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted
for the budgets.
If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself. In a nutshell,
what Obama is saying is I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I
voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th.
Yes Really!!!!!!
Please turn off Fox for a minute and give people real statistics ....
syndicated column by Cal Thomas (Daily Progress, July 11) is headlined “The unemployment numbers game.” One wonders who is manipulating the numbers to reach false conclusions.
Mr. Thomas points out that the unemployment rate in June was 8.2 percent. He also states, “In 1992, when President Bill Clinton became president, the unemployment rate was 7.5 percent. In October 2008, under President George W. Bush, the unemployment rate was 6.5 percent.”
Mr. Thomas then goes on to say that “President Obama has said we ‘can’t afford to go back to the failed policies of the past,’ implying they didn’t work. Those past numbers look a lot better than the ones he's posting."
Let’s look at the numbers in a bit more detail.
When President Clinton left office and President Bush took over in January 2001, the Bureau of Labor Statistics lists the unemployment rate as 4.2 percent.
And why choose the unemployment figures of October 2008? In January 2009 when President Obama took office, the BLS lists unemployment as 7.6 percent.
So the real unemployment numbers were down from 7.5 percent to 4.2 percent under the eight years of the Clinton administration, up from 4.2 percent to 7.6 percent under the eight years of the Bush administration and up from 7.6 percent to 8.2 percent under three years and five months of the Obama administration.
Also, the economy was in shambles when Obama took office. The unemployment rate went up a full percentage point during the last three months of the Bush administration and continued rising rapidly. Since its peak nine months after Obama took office, unemployment has decreased 2 percent.
Of course, national and global economies are very complex; the raw numbers only tell part of the story, and there are factors outside any president’s control that affect unemployment.
The slow recovery is disturbing, but for Cal Thomas to misuse a few selected numbers to conclude that we should return to good old conservative economics, which got us into this mess in the first place, is an absurd distortion of the truth.
