Crossposted from Hillbilly Report.
Today Americans learned what the total price of giving total control of our government to Republicans may be. While there is much self-righteousness and gnashing of teeth among Republicans now, the real unavoidable fact is it was Republican policies, enacted by Republicans during the six years of a Republican Congress with just enough Corporate Democrats and a Republican President that could and did do real, lasting damage
I know George W. Bush is not President now, but it is quite insane to be blaming President Obama and Democrats for all the problems now. He inherited a huge mess with the economy. What could have easily spiraled into a depression seems to have abated some.
Make no mistake about it. This was a REPUBLICAN mess through and through. This mess was created and hit our country well before Barack Obama took office. The price of Mitch McConnell mixed with George W. Bush could be astronomical:
In his prepared remarks, Barofsky writes: "Since the onset of the financial crisis in 2007, the Federal Government, through many agencies, has implemented dozens of programs that are broadly designed to support the economy and financial system. The total potential Federal Government support could reach up to $23.7 trillion."
http://www.politico.com/...
That is why it is so disturbing to hear Republicans railing against the measures taken to clean up their mess. They even ressurected Mitch McConnell's ridiculous comparison:
Still, the eye-popping price tag provoked an immediate reaction on Capitol Hill. "The potential financial commitment the American taxpayers could be responsible for is of a size and scope that isn’t even imaginable," said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. "If you spent a million dollars a day going back to the birth of Christ, that wouldn’t even come close to just one trillion dollars – $23.7 trillion is a staggering figure."
While the math is true it is a shameless attempt to invoke religion to cover their own sins. Good thing Jesus has not a grave to roll over in. The other sorry part is that Rep. Issa forgot to mention the other trillion dollars wasted off the books by Bush/Cheney and their shameless enablers in the Congress off the books.
Now, to see and hear Republicans tell it they are completely innocent of making any mess at all. Seeing them and the voters that put them into office now rallying and crying about waste and taxes is particularly disgusting. They are like a child who has raided the cookie jar, stolen and eaten every one of the cookies and then blames somebody else because they have no more cookies to eat.
If you think about it, they have tried to roll back the New Deal for some time now. I have heard a long time how Republicans try to bankrupt our country to argue there is no money to spend. They think and hope they have finally succeeded.
With all their railing against the "waste of the New Deal" these folks managed to waste so much more than just the money used for that:
Even the Moon landings and the New Deal didn’t come close to $23 trillion: the Moon shot in 1969 cost an estimated $237 billion in current dollars, and the entire Depression-era Roosevelt relief program came in at $500 billion, according to Jim Bianco of Bianco Research.
Now, I know that the economy is quite frustrating. But to hear any Republican that has been in office several terms railing against Obama about it is ludicrous. Where were they when the problem was being caused??
I know eventually Obama will have to take responsiblity for the direction of our country. However, these bailouts started under a REPUBLICAN President as a result of the policies he had enacted. Just look at the bailout Bush instituted, the Banking bailout. They got their bailout and still refused to lend any money, which made all the other bailouts useless.
Americans need to stay focused on the problem and have just a little more patience. The worst thing we can do is listen to anything any Republican says about the economy. Their policies have completely failed and all they care about is maintaining a system they can pick clean. I hope Americans can remember that in 2010.