The Blame Game

By Rick Snay

The reports are NOT good: the U.S. economy lost more jobs in 2008 than it has since 1974 (after 6 years of Republican leadership). Of course, no one on the Republican side is blaming George W. Bush or his supply-side economic policies (which add up to "supply the top one percent of wealth-holders with more and more wealth"). No, as usual, they're casting around for places to put the blame other than on the people who have been in charge for eight years.

Just before the election, I spoke with a Republican who told me we were in trouble if Obama won. What we needed, she told me, was for John McCain to get in there and continue the policies of the Bush administration because, after all, our current economic problems all started under Bill Clinton. 

Now, those who know me best will tell you I have major issues with a LOT of what Clinton did while in office, but there is NOTHING he could have done that could have taken eight years to wreck the economy this bad. True, he did some things that contributed to the atmosphere under which the economy collapsed, but Bush continued and enhanced those errors and added many, MANY of his own. 

Blaming someone else for everything is a standard Republican tactic, though. When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, he implimented "trickle-down" economics on America. He managed to give the appearance of a healthy economy by what amounted to writing bad checks. He ran up a HUGE deficit, bigger than all other presidents COMBINED. When a recession hit two years into his presidency, the Republicans said it was due to Jimmy Carter's policies. Thus was born the idea that anything that happened during a presidency had to be attributed to the four years prior. 

What followed the Reagan years was a deep recession under George the first. So that was Reagan's fault, right? Don't we have to blame that on the guy who was in office four years before it happened? No, the Republicans said...it was the Democrats in Congress. 

Following Bush, Clinton took office. He managed to repair the economy and get America back to work. Of course, that old rule of "the guy before" suddenly applied again, as the Republicans said it was really the policies of George H. W. Bush that were just then starting to work. When George W. Bush followed Clinton and the economy tanked, they called it "the Clinton recession". 

Now, after eight years, the economy is worse than it ever was. Since Bush was in office four years ago, we have to blame him, right? Nope. It's still Clinton. OR, in some Republican circles, it's due to the "flawed leadership" of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid, who took over only last year. This is especially ridiculous considering the fact that very little of what the Democrats have tried to do since gaining the majority in both houses of Congress has gotten through.   The constant filibuster threats from Republicans have effectively obstructed any kind of agenda the Dems might have had. 

When Barack Obama takes the oath of office in January, he will face the largest deficit in the history of the planet. He'll face an economy in meltdown and a jobless rate that is downright frightening. It will take time to right the wrongs. But how much do you want to bet that within months Republicans will be blaming Obama for the poor economy? And how much more would you like to bet that by the end of his first term, when (as always happens) the Democrat has repaired the Republican damage and the nation is again on a healthy path, those same Republicans will be saying the credit should go to Bush?