Bush: "I'm Sorry" About The Economic Crisis

WASHINGTON — President George W. Bush expressed remorse that the global financial crisis has cost jobs and harmed retirement accounts and said he'll back more government intervention if needed to ease the recession.

"I'm sorry it's happening, of course," Bush said in a wide-ranging interview with ABC's "World News," which was airing Monday. "Obviously I don't like the idea of people losing jobs, or being worried about their 401(k)s. On the other hand, the American people got to know that we will safeguard the system. I mean, we're in. And if we need to be in more, we will."

The U.S. economy fell into a recession in December 2007, the National Bureau of Economic Research reported on Monday. Many economists believe the current downturn will last until the middle of 2009 and will be the most severe slump since the 1981-82 recession.

Bush said he felt responsible for the economic downturn because it's occurring on his watch, but he added: "I think when the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so" before he became president.

He said he would like to see "instant liquidity" in the markets given the extent of the financial rescue plan, yet he understands that fear has paralyzed the markets.

"It is hard for the average citizen to understand how frozen the system became and how over-leveraged the system became," Bush said. "And so what we're watching is the de-leveraging of our financial markets, which is obviously affecting the growth of the economy."

Last week, the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve pledged $800 billion to break through blockades on credit cards, auto loans, mortgages and other borrowing. The latest moves raised U.S. commitments to contain the financial crisis to nearly $7 trillion _ though no one thinks the government will actually spend that much.

The figures include loans that are expected to be repaid, loan authorities to back mortgages, purchases of stock in banks, guarantees to support loans among banks and pledges backing other transactions.

"This economy will recover," Bush said in the interview conducted last Wednesday at the Camp David, Md., presidential retreat. "And when it recovers, many of the assets backed by the government now will be redeemed, and we will _ could conceivably _ make money off of some of the holdings."

Later in the interview, he said: "I can't guarantee that we'll get all our money back, but it's conceivable we could."

Comments

[missette]

He's sorry. Oh please. This while his brother speaks of a Republican "Shadow Government" to inflict more harm on the American people. If he's truly sorry, then according to Christian doctrine the next step is repentence. I want to see him on TV apologizing to all the families whose kids joined to the military in a patriotic gesture after 9/11, only to be sent to a war of choice and never return. I want him to apologize to all t hose who were the object of predatory lenders and were not told they had other options. I want him to apologize to all those students who will no longer be able to attend college, or at the least not the college they earned admission into, because the savings set aside for tuition have plummeted in value. I want him to apologize to all those "hard-working Americans" so valued in Republican campaigns who now have no job because of the greed foisted on the nation by Bush's friends on Wall Street. Ditto all those seniors who acted responsibly and set aside money in 401Ks only to find they'll have to forefeit retirement. While Bush basks in Crawford after Jan. 20, the rest of t he nation will struggled to crawl out of the hole he willingly put us in.

[tlgeiger62]

I want to know how much Bush, personally, has suffered in this financial crisis. Like Trump, I hope all these people get what is coming to them. I want them to suffer the way my family and other families (who are unemployed with no prospects) are suffering. I want them to know what it's like to wonder when we will need to move into our cars.

[DavBoston]

One might call this Bush's Mea Culpa without the Mea. "I am sorry this is happening" as if he had no hand in it at all. He is certainly not responsible for everything, but for the bankrupting war with countless needless loss of life, he certainly is responsible. And yet he can sleep at night. That says it all.

[kwazimota]

no no no pity no quarters if that song and dance man u just elected does not get me a pound a flesh i will run over every vw bug i see with my 18 wheeler

[CologneCitizen]

In all fairness, W cannot be blamed for everything. How about you just can spend what you have and make ? America suffers under enormous materialism and is built on it at the same time. So if you tell customers to save and spend thoughtfully the economy is hurt as well. The recession is coming to Europe as well. But as we have quite a good personal savings rate and our social safety nets are woven much tighter than in the US, it is easier for us to sit it out.

[Retrofuturistic]

Everyone does not overspend. You are generalizing.

There are many of us who live within our incomes, have no charge account debt, no mortgages, and money in the bank. We are in that condition because we were moderate, applied thrift to our daily lives, cooked instead of eating out, etc.

Why do WE deserve to lose money because of robber barons????

[speakyourmind]

I honestly don't know why he even speaks anymore.

[crazylikeafox]

Sorry doesn't do it Bush.

[ciceroette]

REQUIEM FOR A LAME DUCK ( yes, you may sing)
Oh, give me a Home, where the dollar won't roam,
and Wall Street's crude hucksters can't play.
Where seldom was heard, an honest, true word,
And our jobs crossed the sea, far away.

HOME, HOME, this is strange,
Where the workers and citizens pay,
But seldom is seen, our AMERICAN DREAM,
And Democracy dies by the day!

[stargazer13]

sorry does not even come close Mr P this is not a candy dish you broke at some one,sn party

this was millions of people,s lives job,s home,s some have already taken there vary life because of this and there are sure to be more on the way who just give up the good fight for lack of hope .

I would also hazard to guess that this was also the biggest transfer of wealth from poor to rich that has ever taken place in America since 1913 when congress in there great wisdom sold our treasury to the private bankers for the sum of 148 million dollars which we can buy back for the same price when ever we so choose

you have bankrupted the greatest nation in the free world for none other then greed's sake

you have robbed future generations of any dream they may have pursued and now with 50 days left you seek to also destroy the very water and air and land we love and NONE DARE CALL IT Tr*son

[Joeyjackal]

An extraordinary time in America as we decisively elect a mixed-race president for the first time. Bush feigns regret. Two questions. What does say about us as a people that we popularly elected him twice as manifested through ultimately the unassailable Sumpreme Court decision and then again in 2004. There's strong reasons to feel that neither election was legitimate but nonetheless apathetically accepted. I hope the same citizens who voted on Bush's behalf might be motivated toward a little inner reflection about their own complicity in a small way. This is a fine example of when one wishes untrue that peoples often get the leaders they deserve.

[Mzilikazi]

This is ridiculous, business cycles are nobodies fault, this was bound to happen, exporting jobs and cutting wages, well people earning 10 per hour can not afford what somebody earning 20 hour gets.

[Artos]

What is even more interesting than Bushs BS is the fact that so many others played a part as well. I can't count the amount of times some Bush Administration official, including Paulson and also Bernanke who denied several months back that we were in a recession. Wall Street types were doing the same thing. They all fell back on the crap about how a classic sign of a recession was two ... blah, blah, blah , blah Blahs. What a bunch of scuzzbags. They kept telling people all was well so that we would be lured into spending more money and investing in stocks only to have it all end up in the pockets of the Big Shots. What I can't believe is how everyone just keeps on doing it. P.T. Barnum was right, "A fool and his money are soon parted." and " A sucker is born every minute.".

[Pat15]

so right ...The way republicans work as they have done many times before ...Hey Joe here is your $200 tax cut but Hey Mr. Rich here is your $2 million Tax cut but remember now that come election time I need big donation ...ok ...Deal done ...Sad part is that Joe buys it ... Republicans will never do anything for their citizens their whole philosphy is based on Propaganda, marketing coupled with lies & hypocracy.­.. We have seen it time after time but we are the folls who buy it everytime ...We deserve Bush & he destroyed this nation in 8 short years ...Amen

[Artos]

Bush said he was "Sorry it happened" and because it happened on his watch he felt responsible. What he didn't say with any emphasis or surety was that he "was responsible". There's a big difference in the semantics there. You can see that he doesn't feel it's really his fault by how he goes on to say that the decisions of the previous decade were what had led to it. This man has couched his phraseology very carefully, which is pretty incredible considering what has come out of his mouth previously and passed for English. This man doesn't intend to take any responsibility at all even though he knows full well that he is. What a slime ball.

[Cynth]

Exactly.

[wendynyc]

Sorry pal - that's not good enough.

I'm wondering if Anthony Scalia and those folks at Supreme Ct that got him in are so happy with his reign as well??

[KarateKid]

He's like an atheist who discovers God on his deathbed.