The Consequences of Conservative Economic Policy

[Tippy]

A Tried and Failed Approach that Should Not Be Repeated

The Great Recession dealt a crushing blow to the well-being of the American people, but our economy had actually been in a tough spot for many years. Before President George W. Bush left a deep financial crisis and economic collapse on President Barack Obama’s doorstep, he presided over two terms of laissez-faire supply-side policies that yielded the weakest expansion in recent U.S. economic history, marked by tepid job growth, weak private investment, stagnant family incomes, and a host of other ills that mounting housing and financial bubbles helped partially obscure. That President Bush took no action to address the fundamental weakness of the American economy and protect it from financial collapse was a tragic failure—but it was a tragic failure to be expected by a conservative president practicing conservative economics.

This approach sowed the seeds for today’s federal budget deficit, financial crisis, and the Great Recession. And it is no less tragic that those who share that president’s philosophy—and who still retain power through their positions in Congress—are compounding their ideological brother’s mistakes by standing in the way of economic progress and growth.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/10/conservative_economics.html

My comment:

Bush’s failure to address fundamental economic problems was terrible for the country, and the devotion to markets-take-care-ofthemselves ideology in the face of some of the most irresponsible financial market practices in history allowed the financial collapse and its myriad

And this is why Republicans keep telling the voters "it's no longer Bush's problem...it's Obamas". We also know if we don't pay attention to history we are doomed to repeat it. We must keep talking about how we got here.

[HughBeaumont]

1. This cannot be kicked and recommended ENOUGH.

You can say what you want about Bewsh's old man, and there is a lot to say about him, but even he knew that Laissez-FAIL Bullshitnomics was a loser for the American people. Yet, it was never about helping the American people, was it? And the average American asshole falls for it every single goddamned time.

You have to be one dumb and cruel son of a bitch to give ANY credibility to these gold-painted shitbrick strategies.

[AndrewP]

3. Agreed. Mainly cruel

[TheKentuckian]

2. That rabbit hole is miles deeper than Bush the Lessor.

Failure to indict and destroy the entire trickle down, free trade, you're on your own, social Darwinist, funnel the wealth to the wealthy, no deregulation left behind, screw the poor ideology that has been embraced by both parties for a generation.

Our folks throw out crumbs to the masses to grease the wheels but the fundamentals of the economic philosophy are the same.