Five years ago, the Republicans controlled the House, Senate, and Presidency.
Unemployment was at 4.4%
The national debt was under $8.7 Trillion.
Then, in January 2007, the Democrats took control…
Democrats have held majority control (2+ out of 3) of the House, Senate, and Presidency since January 2007. In just three weeks, we will mark the 5 year anniversary of the shift in the balance of power from Republican to Democrat.
Under majority-Democratic rule, unemployment has more than doubled, and the national debt has increased to over $15.1 Trillion (an increase of over $6.4 Trillion in just those 5 years). That represents an average annual deficit of almost $1.3 Trillion per year for five straight years. When Democrats took majority control in January 2007, they took an already bad national debt (of under $8.7 Trillion) and proceeded to increase it by over 70%. How? By unprecedented amounts of deficit spending.
For comparison purposes, compare two different 4-year periods, a decade apart. In each period, one party controlled both houses of Congress.
Republican Congress 1997-2000: about $100 Billion new debt per year.
Democrat Congress 2007-2010: about $1,300 Billion new debt per year.
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I repeat:
Democrats have held majority control (2+ out of 3) of the House, Senate, and Presidency since January 2007. This has been a Democrat-led economy for nearly 5 years.
Are you better off now than you were 5 years ago?
On December 10th, 2011 at 4:35 pm, Green eyed Lady said:
The Captain changes his mind lies a lot.
You know how little Barry and friends always like to say they inherited this mess and it’s all Bush’s fault??
REMEMBER JANUARY 3, 2007
The day the Democrats took over was not January 22nd 2009, it was actually January 3rd 2007, the day the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and the Senate, at the very start of the 110th Congress.
The Democratic Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995.
For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is “Bush’s Fault”, think about this: January 3rd, 2007, the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress:
The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77 The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5% The Unemployment rate was 4.6% George Bush’s Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION!
Remember that day… January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.
The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?
BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!
THANK YOU DEMOCRATS (especially Barney ) for taking us from 13,000 DOW, 3.5 GDP and 4.6% Unemployment…to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES!
(BTW: Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie -starting in 2001 because it was financially risky for the US economy). Barney blocked it and called it a “Chicken Little Philosophy” (and the sky did fall!)
And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? OBAMA.
And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie? OBAMA and the Democrat Congress, especially BARNEY!!
So when someone tries to blame Bush… REMEMBER JAN UARY 3rd, 2007…. THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!”
Bush may have been in the car but the Democrats were in charge of the gas pedal and steering wheel, they were driving the economy into the ditch.
Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party. Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for 2008 & 2009 as well as 2010 & 2011.
In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.
For 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the 2009 budget.
And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete 2009. Let’s remember what the deficits looked like during that period:
If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets.
If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.
And then he voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th.
As to the Financial Crisis in 2008, where does the blame belong?
Who tried to reform Fannie/Freddie, and who insisted that nothing was wrong at Fannie/Freddie?
While I think it is important to look at the last 5 years, not just the last 3, the following is still informative…
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Personally, I am actually far better off than 5 years ago. However, none of that has anything to do with the political winds of DC, or politicians at any level for that matter. All the causes of my vastly improved financial situation can be directly traced back to risks I took and decisions I made over the last 4 years.
Congratulations, Aaron, well done!
Business has actually been going well for me, too, but for most people things are not better now than they were 5 years ago.
More on Fannie/Freddie:
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Pelosi plays dumb
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And a congratulations to you as well.
It seems that tough economic times always raise a new crop of economic winners while damaging (though not necessarily eliminating) “old money”. However, this one seems to not be producing any new winners and mostly damaging the regular joes like us.
What seems to be happening is that the government is bent on protecting the “old money” (GM, Chrysler, AIG, etc…) while desperately trying to pick the new winners (Fisker, Solyndra, etc…)–and failing–in effort to shape the US economy according to their desires. What’s worse is that it is all being paid for by regular joes.
Aaron,
I think that the Democratic Socialists are trying to put the majority of small businesses out of business (with excessive regulations) and are trying to take over the big businesses (GM, Chrysler, etc.) They want the only businesses left operating to answer directly to them.
I believe you may have a point.
Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
Saturday, December 31, 2011
“most Americans believe that the country has been in a recession constantly since late 2007″
Are you better off now than you were five years ago?
Most Americans say, “No.”
Most Americans would love to go back to the economic conditions of five years ago, when unemployment was 4.4% and the national debt was under $8.7 Trillion.