The day the Democrats took over was not January 22nd 2009, when Obama became President. It was actually January 3rd, 2007, two years earlier, when the Democrats took control with large majorities over both the House of Representatives and the Senate, at the very start of the 110th Congress. At that point the Democratic Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995. Obama was now part of that Democrat Senate.
For those who are listening to Democrats saying that everything is "Bush's Fault," think about this:
January 3rd, 2007, the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress:
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 were the foundation for A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION.
Remember that day...
January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank(D) took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd(D) took over the Senate Banking Committee. They became the Chairmen.
The economic meltdown that happened later was in BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES.
Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid are largely responsible for taking us from nearly 13,000 DOW, 3.5 GDP growth, and 4.6% Unemployment...into this CRISIS. Among MANY other things, they ordered 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans be forced into the economy. They became virtually worthless after their ultra-liberal and fiscally irresponsible Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mandates and policies blew up. The ones that ordered that everyone is entitled to a house...no credit checks...no money down....that’s the “fair” way to run the U.S. housing and banking system. Oh yeah, and be sure to bundle up all those trillions of dollars of risky loans and sell them as investment securities to pension funds, retirees, whoever they could unload them on. Those were the toxic loans that wiped out investors and sank the banks.
President Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie because it was financially risky for the US economy to operate housing financing that way. Barney Frank(D) blocked it and called it Bush’s objections "Chicken Little Philosophy". He said the sky would not fall.
And guess who took the THIRD highest pay-off, campaign contributions, from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? OBAMA.
And who fought against attempts to reform Fannie and Freddie? OBAMA, and the Democrat Congress. And three former heads of Freddie and Fannie, all disgraced and forced to resign, are Obama’s chief economic advisors at this moment.
So when someone tries to blame Bush...
REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007....
THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER CONTROL OF CONGRESS.
Bush may have been in the car but, the Democrats were in charge of the economic gas pedal and the banking steering wheel as the economy was driven into the ditch.
Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress, and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democrat Party.
Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for 2008 & 2009 as well as 2010 & 2011. In that first year, they had to contend with President Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush got tough on their spending increases.
For 2009, Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid bypassed President 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 budget, and which they have done repeatededly since, passing not one budget, as required by law in all that time. 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.
Let's remember what the deficits looked like during that period:
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 every budget.
If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself. In a nutshell, what Obama has done is inherited a deficit that he voted for, and then insisted on increasing that deficit four-fold since January 20th, 2009 as President.
"The problems we face today exist because the people who work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a living."
