At first glance former President Bush and President Obama seem like opposites when it comes to economic policy making. Talk of Bush as a free-marketeer and deregulator abounds as Obama’s reputation as a big spender and intervener grow stronger by the day. A closer look shows their economic policies have more in common than meets the eye.
5. They love to spend. Bush passed a $3 trillion budget for 2009. Obama posted a $3.5 trillion budget in 2010. Bush doubled the debt to almost $6 trillion and Obama’s plans would leave us with an IOU of an additional $8.5 trillion by 2020.
4. They shop at the same stores. Contrary to popular belief, defense and homeland security spending only made up about 40 percent of Bush’s new spending. He increased spending across most non-defense categories – like education, Medicare, Medicaid, income security and regional development – by four to six times the rate of inflation. In Obama’s first half year in office, as he demanded a departure from the “investment deficit” years under Bush, these budgets rose another 70 percent or 40 times the rate of inflation.
3. They dabble with stimulants. In 2001 and 2008, Bush spent billions on rebates to stimulate consumer spending. In 2009, Obama upped the ante with his $862 billion stimulus package.
2. They give sweetheart deals to failing corporations. Obama carried out Bush’s unpopular $700 billion bailout for failing corporations. Together, the presidents have bailed out over 600 businesses since Spring 2008.
1. They enjoy regulating in their free time. Once again contrary to popular belief, President Bush was the biggest regulator since Richard Nixon. Under his leadership in 2007, the number of pages of regulation added to the Federal Register reached an all-time high of 78,090 – a 21 percent increase from Bush’s first year. And spending on regulatory activities rose to $42 billion in 2009 – a 62 percent increase. Since taking office, Obama has proposed a large and sweeping increase in regulation that many worry could lead to another financial crisis in the future.
Despite rhetoric that suggests the contrary, President Obama’s economic policies are strikingly more of the same failed policies that Bush tried before him. This is unfortunate because, as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman claims, the last decade has seen declining private-sector employment and declining median household income.
Tags: Bush, Corporate Welfare, decade of zero, defense spending, Federal Register, investment deficit, Obama, Paul Krugman, regulation, stimulus spending
It’s about time someone is pointing out how similar these two presidents really are.
[...] Team Bush-Obama. [...]
And the Obama foreign policy – WWBD.
What would Bushie do.
Yes, I agree with you entirely. Bush and Obama seem like clones to me. And on more things that spending. I can’t tell any difference in their Foreign Policy – latest reports are that Obama is only going to withdraw about 90,000 troops from Iran – out of about 125,000 in country, so ‘End the War in Iraq’ isn’t going to happen in his administration any more than it would have if we had had four more years of Bush. Obama also hasn’t made any effort to get rid of the Patriot Act and the various and Bush’s various and sundry abridgements to our civil liberties. Indeed he is working hard to avoid investigating or prosecuting anyone for torture. He is continuing the Bush Administration policy of targeting individuals for assassination far from any field of battle, and without providing any proof to the world that they are guilty of anything – the simple assertion that they are ‘terrorists’ is all that seems to be required. And one reads in the paper (Glenn Greenwald at Salon) that his Administration is carrying on a hitherto secret Bush Administration policy of also assassinating American citizens abroad who the Administration deems to be ‘a threat to Americans’ – a new low point as far as I am aware in the erosion of our civil liberties.
Isn’t deregulation the biggest reason we are in this mess? Oh yeah but good idea to let that keep going ??? huh?
Deregulation? The Federal Register stands at nearly 80,000 pages costing American business an estimated regulatory tax of over $1.1 Trillion. Our medical and financial services industries bear the brunt of those regulations and the result? Financial failure of both sectors with hospital bankruptcies and bank failures and in the case of the medical market escalating costs and declining services.
So what does the government call for? More regulations! My what a shocking surprise. Dismantle the free market with excessive regulations, disrupting and crippling it and then call for even more regulations because the already intrusive regulatory climate is not intrusive enough.
Gee, I wonder if the government call for regulatory expansion of an already heavily regulated market has anything to do with increasing the power and reach of government and their capacities?
Naaah……they are just looking out for the common person. You know, like they always do. Right? I must be insane to suggest that our altruistic politicians would have anything other than the well-being of the public in mind I guess.
Sorry, my bad.
The #1 problem is the country being directed and controlled by a central bank.
The #2 problem is a federal government that doesn’t know it’s limits and continues to write laws it has no authority to write. Or spend money it has no authority to spend. Or place restrictions it has no right to create.
Re: Mike on #1 & #2 problems:
YOU ARE SOOOOOOO RIGHT! Hats off to you.
@Frank
You say “Deregulation? The Federal Register stands at nearly 80,000 pages costing American business an estimated regulatory tax of over $1.1 Trillion.”
How the hell do you equate pages of regulation to cost? Further, how do you come to the $1.1 trillion figure of regulatory tax? A source provided to come to those numbers would be something I’d like to see.
But nice spin though. Trying to make it sound like regulations hurt common people and help politicians get their hands on control. That’s a good one. I gotta give it to you for spinning that one 180.
Explain to me how the repeal of Glass-Steagall act helped out the those poor bankers and how China patterned their entire financial system off that one regulation that we repealed.
Why do I get the feeling you’re the webmaster of this site Frank and this comment will never see the light of day?
The funny thing is how easy it is to see that you’re educated and at the same time spinning things to your political agenda.
Let’s get one thing straight: People aren’t ethical. Corporations aren’t people. People run corporations. If people don’t have regulations they will always choose to enrich themselves and screw their fellow man. That’s just human nature. To suggest otherwise is false and this is exactly how Julius Caesar came into power.
Not much has changed in the 2000 years since Caesar. Break the stereotype Frank. Fess up to who you really are and what you’re really trying to do with your post. I see you Frank. I see right through you.
@ Frank
One last thing… It’s not just generic “regulations” that are the problem. It’s getting the right regulations. Measure regulation and deregulation by their effective good, not in generic terms like pages. Any regulation proposed by a lobby group is not a good one and most all regulations in the USA are proposed by lobby groups. That’s why Bush and Obama are so much the same and their regulations don’t do anything good. They’re just puppets on the strings controlled by the lobbies. Let me write the regulations and you will see the corrupt hanging from the gallows.