What does comparing their records tell us?

Senator McConnell: “Stopping Obama’s re-election is still our single most important goal”.

It takes two to tango! According to our Constitution, Congress and the President have joint responsibility for the budget. Thus, both Bush and his Congress are jointly responsible for the Bush Meltdown because they deregulated Wall Street. They also doubled the debt with the Bush tax cuts, the Iraq invasion, and the unfunded drug benefit.

But without Congress, the President is powerless to improve the economy and has no responsibility for unemployment. The filibuster has stopped Obama from day 1. Of all the Senate filibusters in the last 90 years, almost 20% have been used by Republicans against Obama. In 2009, a watered-down stimulus passed with the votes of only one Republican Senator. Dozens of administrative posts have been denied confirmation, including the appointment of a Nobel Laureate. Congress has rejected every budget he presented.

Republicans have destroyed the jobs and lives of millions of Americans by trying to prevent a recovery just to blame it on Obama. Our economy is stricken by anemia. Its lifeblood, its money supply (M2), is now less than $10T. Because of our trade deficit, our economy bleeds over $0.5T of M2 annually but gets a new transfusion only through the government’s deficit spending. Without the stimulus funds and the auto bailout, M2 would now be less than $9T and we would be trapped in a deflationary spiral, facing a serious depression. Who would spend or invest a dollar today if it would buy more tomorrow?

By adding over $1T to M2, Obama avoided Hoover’s collapse and a 25% unemployment rate. He saved over 20 million jobs but we still need 20 million more. The economy is starving for a much larger addition to M2 and the only possible source is government spending on much-needed infrastructure. Everyone knows this but Congressional spending is restrained by a needless fear of excessive debt.

Obama’s spending spree is a myth. As a percentage of total federal spending, discretionary spending was lower in 2011 than in any year in US history. (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/obama-s%E2%80%A6(...

Obama’s taxing spree is a myth. Taxes on the wealthy are the lowest in 80 years. We now have the lowest tax rate in 30 years. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/in-...

The deficit is entirely due to the Bush Meltdown: imploding tax revenue and exploding, mandatory recovery costs beyond Obama’s responsibility. Our deficit, our debt, and our depression are all Republican.

The health care bill takes effect in 2014 and has had no effect upon the economy. The only other spending bills signed by Obama were the stimulus and the auto bailout, which turned a GDP decline into growth at a rate of $1T per year for the first 2 years. Resulting tax revenue increases, relief benefit declines, and infrastructure improvements have largely paid for the stimulus.

The stimulus paid over $110B to construction workers, $11B to scientists doing research and development crucial to our future, and restored our auto industry. Much more could have been done if Republican governors had used grants for the intended purpose. Instead of fixing school roofs, Texas Governor Perry used stimulus funds to pay debts caused by tax cuts.

The stimulus should have been three times larger to make up for the huge drop in consumer spending caused by the Bush Meltdown. By opposing the stimulus and by limiting the spending on infrastructure, conservatives prevented a speedy recovery so that they could blame Obama for unemployment. They lowered the tax revenue, increased the debt problem, and put us behind China in the race to modernize infrastructure, the basis of military strength and security.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/o...

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/07/whats-t...

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/07/what-do...

http://www.keynesforum.blogspot.com/