The 2009 bailout bill prevented another Depression. The fact that we're seeing clear signs of economic recovery today is directly attributable to that bill. Yeah, it sucked, but if you want to blame someone for ever having to throw that money away, blame the GOP president whose policies so thoroughly wrecked the economy that we were backed into a corner and had to do this. Had McCain won the election he'd have had to promulgate the same bill.
That is conjecture, I would like to know what inofrmation backs up your assertions. First, clear signs of economic recovery, what are those signs that are directly related to that bill? What are the policies by bush that wrecked this country? :dunno
It's not conjecture. It's based on sound fiscal numbers.
Bailout Prevents Great Depression 2.0
Bottom line: Lots of folks have problems with the bailout. Liberals don't like a government bailout of
Wall Street (instead of more homeowner help). Conservatives don't like a
government bailout of Wall Street (vs. letting the market have its way). In a commentary on the
National Review website,
Newt Gingrich shows great skepticism toward the Mother of All Bailouts, advising that Congress "had better ask a lot of questions before it shifts this much burden to the taxpayer and shifts this much power to a Washington bureaucracy." He also presents several other actions government could take: 1) suspend the mark-to-market accounting rule; 2) repeal the Sarbanes-Oxley law; 3) eliminate the capital-gains tax; 4) undertake an "all of the above" energy plan to keep at home $500 billion of the $700 billion we currently send overseas for imported energy.
Count me as "all of the above" for Gingrich's ideas. (Toss in a corporate tax cut while you're at it.) But what would have been a smart, free-market plan in August 2007 or March of this year isn't enough for right now.
Just as government created the environment for the credit crisis, it failed to enact quick solutions. The situation has gone critical. It's time for shock and awe.
This is a 2008 article written by a guy against the bailout - but who foresees the disaster if we don't do it. Note - this article was written two months before Obama won the election. The economy was in a shambles after Bush's war-time spending, the bursting of the housing and dot-com bubbles and rampant deregulation -
and Bush had already bailed out Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, Bear Stearns, and others.
As for the stimulus' success, Carlfense has already posted job-growth data since the bailout, we are factually not in a depression, and consumer confidence is up. It's a work in progress so it's not the time to declare it a success. Certainly, to this point, it is not a failure.
