At some point you are going to have to stop blaming Bush for everything. I don't watch Glen Beck but plenty of CSPAN and pay attention to world events to form my own opinions.
Just for the record the Republicans tried to reign in Fannie and Freddie for years before this housing bubble burst and the bills were tabled over and over by the Democrat committee leadership, until finally they were too sick to ignore and they finally put them into government conservatorship. Funny how almost overnight they went from Barney Frank and Chris Dodd saying they were healthy, to sticking the fork in them. Now they are expanding the balance sheets of these walking dead entities because they are the only mortgage market makers out there. I thought conservatorship meant an orderly dissolution, I guess not just now.
Yes the beginning of bailout nation started under Bush's watch with bridge loans to detroit to bump that into the next guys term, but detroit didn't get that way overnight. They got soft from decades of government trade protectionism, and under that protective umbrella cut way too generous deals with the unions. Detroit was a ticking bomb waiting to pop, and GM/Chrysler are not fixed yet. Though the unions are suing GM (us taxpayers?) for a better deal.
I will leave it to the historians to determine if the Iraq we all end up with was worth our investment in blood and treasure. It and Afghanistan would have cost less (blood and bucks) if better managed, but that is all too easy to argue in hindsight.
TARP was initiated under Bush but in cooperation with the next administration who would administer it. It quickly turned into something other than the intended mechanism to establish market prices for troubled assets and the crony capitalism took off in ernest. The recent decision to not return TARP payments to the treasury but recycle them for more spending was not approved by the original bill and is another spending perversion.
The healthcare bill is worse than a train wreck... It doesn't address the root problems, it just expands entitlements while simultaneously reducing payments to service those entitlements. Only the government would believe they can reduce cost by paying less. The healthcare sector has for years been making up the difference by charging those outside the system more. By drawing everybody into the system, and paying even less, the math just doesn't work. Experienced doctors are running for the exits, and recent medicare cuts actually reduce the funding for residencies needed to bring new doctors into the system. This gang is not shooting straight, no matter how good they feel about their effort.
Yes I am aware that there was an active public debate about the constitution and even bill of rights. I think there's a book called the anti-federalist papers (that I haven't read). I am in favor of a constitutional convention now to propose a spending amendment, that would limit it to some sustainable percentage of GDP... we can't spend ourselves wealthy by borrowing. I see a huge qualitative difference in governance from this recent administration.. they didn't start the spending orgy, but took the game to a whole new level, and this can't go on without negative repercussions.
Even the Dodd proposal to end too big to fail, by building up a huge bail out account, doesn't even pretend to do what it says. We need the big companies to know they will disappear when they screw up, not have some rainy day fund waiting in the wings to bail them out again.
JR
PS: of course I could be wrong... and every thing they promise will work out just like they say... and I have some MS swamp land I can sell ya... if you believe that.