Who's to blame?
That's an invalid comparison. Bush's economic policies left the nation in the worse mess since the Great Depression1. It was necessary to spend gobs of money to reverse a bad situation2. Now, it is perfectly valid to question whether that spending was done efficiently but as far as I know only a very few deficit hawks argue that doing so was entirely wrong3. So Obama had to increase the debt to stimulate the economy to try to pull the USA out of the recession4. In that light, I'd put the onus on Bush.
But this is way off topic. I'm prepared to drop it unless you want to start a new thread5..
So, I was right about the spike in deficits after 2008?
1. What policies? How did Bush II differ from Clinton or Bush I or Carter? It's more productive to indicate individual policies and consider their effects. Deregulation began under Carter (Alfred Kahn). Airline traffic boomed. The US Trade representatives under Bush I negotiated GATT and NAFTA, and Clinton pushed them through Congress (with majority Republican support and minority Democratic
Republican support). Clinton must have known that this would cost him support. A Democratic Congress passed and Carter signed signed the CRA. Bush II tried repeatedy to get Congess to address the taxpayers' financial exposure. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd blocked corrections. When Bush II had majorities in both houses of Congress and a conservative majority on the supreme court, we did not get entitlement reform, elimination of earmarks, a line item veto, a balanced budget amendment, an end to ag subsidies, or term limits for legislators. We got bloated Transportation Department budgets, a new prescription drug entitlement, the AIG bailout, and the first GM bailout. If memory serves. I may have one or two mistakes here. After 2006, Congress passed and Bush signed, a large increase in the Federal minimum wage. Where I fault Bush I and II, they acted like New Deal/Great Society Democrats. I credit Carter and Clinton where they act like pre-1900s Democrats and modern Republicans (support for free trade).
2. "Spending gobs of money" increases the State's control over commercial activity. Money creation is a hidden (and unlegislated) tax on cash balances. Taxation depresses productive activity. See "
deadweight loss due to taxation". If creating money stimulates productive activity, why does the State prosecute counterfeiters and not deputize them?
3. Why was the stimulus not spent where economies had slowed the most? It went to political supporters (public sector unions, auto unions, campaign donors). Apparently, even officials in the Obama administration did not believe their rhetoric.
4. Bush did nothing unusual. That was his major malfunction.
5. Good idea.
