Booze and the Economy

The media is buzzing this week over footage of President Bush explaining our economic woes at a Houston political fundraiser by saying "Wall Street got drunk."

"There's no question about it," Bush told his audience, "Wall Street got drunk -- that's one of the reasons I asked you to turn off the TV cameras -- it got drunk and now it's got a hangover."

True to form, the president prefers simplistic jargon over communicating the complexity of any subject. Also true to form, he refuses to take responsibility for what is occurring on his watch -- a plunging dollar, a mortgage crisis, a dangerously volatile stock market and a squandering of historic surpluses. The best he can do it sum it up, "Wall Street got drunk." But what did happen?

I will let others analyze the failures of the federal regulators under President Bush. This was certainly a major factor in creating this financial crisis. But I can comment on President Bush's reckless tax policy.

The two presidents that preceded President Bush embraced the conservative value of getting revenues and expenditures in line. President George H. W. Bush famously reneged on his "read my lips: no new taxes" pledge in order to address the deficits. This was a big factor in his '92 loss. President Bill Clinton, the victor that year, came to Washington with a Democratic House and Senate and pushed through a revenue package that also addressed these deficits. This helped cost the Democrats control of both houses in '94. It was an earthquake, which would come to be known as the Gingrich revolution. Obviously, both Presidents Bush and Clinton made great sacrifices in order to achieve surpluses.

I was in the Senate in October of 2000 when President Clinton vetoed Republican-passed tax bills of modest amounts because they threatened our surplus. I was also there five months later when President Bush unfathomably promoted a tax cut four times as large as the kind Clinton had vetoed -- a cut of 1.6 trillion dollars. And it passed! President Bush then embarked on an unprecedented spending spree: a prescription drug benefit added to Medicare, an expensive new federal bureaucracy called the Department of Homeland Security and trillion dollar wars overseas, which are creating a new generation of veterans that will deserve physical and mental care at taxpayers' expense for decades to come. President Bush's first veto was not over unchecked congressional pork but over stem cell research!

The president reversed his predecessors' good, conservative fiscal policies -- responsible stewardship of revenues and expenditures. So who's drunk?

Comments

[DestinationsUnknown]

Wall Street did not only get drunk, it was ALCOHOL POISON!

We have yet to even understand the breath of this GAME that has been played. Bush mentioned 'FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS’, well we should place our attention to the HEALTH CARE industry that has and will be affected by these 'FUNNY" Financial Instruments

We MUST pay attention to the TRIAL in Columbus, Ohio this October.(Many delays already) It is noted by Federal Prosecutors to be the LARGEST PRIVATE FRAUD in Financial History in this country. The question will be can anyone, or will anyone pay close enough attention to the intricate details this case is central to.

[SisterAnn]

I feel the same way, that true Democrats are not represented like they really are.

There is probably a lot of us in the middle that could work out all the problems in a few days, but there is too many that gain from chaos and confusion.

There is a part of the Republican party that have no morals. I remember when some of them wanted to give those close to retirement $10,000 and tell them Social Security was closed. That was so unreal, but the msm kept it a secret.

None of this chaos could have happened if the msm news had just reported the truth and not covered up for everything they were doing from day one. We wouldn't have a war in Iraq either.

[veracity]

Well said, Senator Chaffee...
"President Bush unfathomably promoted a tax cut four times as large as the kind Clinton had vetoed -- a cut of 1.6 trillion dollars. And it passed! President Bush then embarked on an unprecedented spending spree: a prescription drug benefit added to Medicare, an expensive new federal bureaucracy called the Department of Homeland Security and trillion dollar wars overseas, which are creating a new generation of veterans that will deserve physical and mental care at taxpayers' expense for decades to come. President Bush's first veto was not over unchecked congressional pork but over stem cell research!"

Here is the link to the very well done chart of US Budget Deficits (or surpluses) by year and per president, 1960 to present. The Red Ink of the Bush-2 Deficits is almost a vertical line straight down, interrupted only by a slight upward curve coinciding with the beggining of the real estate boom - which for a time spurred production of homes, home products, and of course lucrative financial commissions for lenders and agents.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3015540/US-Budget-Deficit-or-Surplus-1960present

That (real estate bubble) temporary boom is now gone, and the American economy attempts to cruise along on its cheap energy, oil, and foreign imports addictions.

[dshwa]

Yeah, wall street "Got drunk." But deregulation was the bottle, which we handed it to them. Not hearing alot of calls for a return to sobriety either, not from those who make the decisions (Congress and the prez...)

[kenrynne]

Are we all in a national 12-step meeting?

The Decider says Wallstreet was "drunk" Now it's "hungover."

And no more fancy financial instruments (made possible by a certain someone's banking deregulation).
'Denial?"

But I appreciate a certain consistency.

Remember 2 years ago?
The Decider pronounced the USA "addicted to oil"

So this year The Decider called for offshore drilling, and ANWR drilling,
and South Lawn drilling - some might say he was only "enabling" our "addiction."

This November, maybe we need to check into "REHAB." Rehabama?

[MPeter]

Thanks Senator. Keep them honest. The Rethugs and of course Bush, have lost direction. They plunged us in this mess and now McSame wants to continue the same policies. Thank you.

[DoubleBarrellBunnyAnger]

Sen Chaffee, fiscally the Dems are the party that the Republicans claim to be

[djwfutbol]

Personally, I think the attempts to categorize the Bush disaster suffer from excesses of simplicity. Each of the awful ideas has had a level of complexity that, had they been allowed to exist in isolation, would have required careful scrutiny and intense micro-management to succeed. Instead, all taken at once, the cumulative result has been chaos.

So, to me, defining causes and effects of the imbecile and his actions, is impossible in simple terms. Good luck to the next group of folk who will have to unravel this 10-mile long string of Christmas lights.

[telebob59]

djwfutbol -- I heartily concur with your personal observation. Yes, good luck and godspeed to the next group who will have economic chaos and other strings of Christmas to untangle: addressing the damage done to our civil liberties at home and the cruel joke played on our standing as a global "superpower" will be most challenging indeed.

[telebob59]

whoopsie...that's Christmas lights -- to untangle.

[Cautious]

And now today we learn that the government will provide $300 billion for bailing out mortgage borrowers and mortgage holders.

Bailing out borrowers that were clearly cheated or misled is ok by me. Even bailing out the marginal borrowers keeps housing prices up.

But it's still kind of stupid. Mortgage Company A makes a bad loan to Borrower B. And now the goverment will assure that Mortgage Company A will recieve payment on the mortgage and won't have to write it off. Who's the real benificiary here.

Of course Obama can't say it out loud until he's elected, but I think we're in for some Rooseveltian economics here.

[PKSSK]

I hope Senator Reed, who I admire, is chosen as Obama's VP and you, Mr. Chafee, become a US Senator once again. We need honest members of congress who have the character and integrity to staying true to their own values by speaking truth to power instead of following a political brand of values like the GOP and DLC, which has been proven wrong by leading us into an illegal war, destroyed our economy, our reputation in the world, our environement, our media and slowly our Constitution. We need you back in the Senate and we need a trusted VP voice for Obama like Senator Reed.

[bigtimepatriot]

When people are drunk in a bar, we make the bar tenders cut them off. We hold them responsible.

When businesses are drunk on risky business practices, George Bush says "we need more deregulation".

George Bush - Worst President Ever...

[jgsuperpants]

ANd, if you drink and drive, you are absolutely liable. Why is there no liability for Wall Street. I love how anti-Socialized healthcare the Repuglicans are, but how much they favor corporate socialism. THey banks can profit ridiculously off of interest rates, but have zero liability for their own bad loans? It's obscene.

[ccbobc]

been a fan of yours since i watched you explain the primary process on the daily show. glad to have a chance to hear your perspective!

[VolvoBirkenstock]

Definitely not our fathers' Oldsmobile.

[Sundialsvc4]

Taxes? Umm... sorry, (former) Senator Chafee, but the United States Government has not relied upon Tax revenues since about 1969.

In 1974, or thereabouts, a man named Henry Kissinger (who's still alive, btw...) imagined that he was living-out King Midas's Dream when he negotiated the idea with the Saudi's that all future Oil transactions throughout the world would be denominated in United States Dollars. He imagined that he had thereby replaced "gold" with a limitless supply of "black gold." Unfortunately (for the Saudis and for the Americans) this did not turn out to be the case.

Today, the United States Government "borrows" about $1 million a MINUTE "against 'the full faith and credit of the United States,'" whatever-the-hell THAT means. And so, whatever-it-means, the "reality" is that (on somebody-or-the-other's computer, at least...) about 2 million more "dollars" (PRESTO!) "exist" at the end of this message than "existed" when(ever) you started to read it.

Ahem...

[research]

I hope nobody believes that Bush didn't want this video to get out.