POLL: People Still Blame Bush More Than Obama For The Economic Mess

[steven johnson]

Sorry, George, you screwed up.

A new poll from WSJ/NBC shows that Mitt Romney is leading the Republican field, but that only 45% of the party is excited about the electorate.

Digging deeper into the survey, there are some interesting facts, including this Question 23, which surprised us a lot. Still more people blame Bush for the economy than Obama.

As you can see, 14% still view Bush as "solely responsible" vs. 10% for Obama. And 33% say Bush is "mainly responsible" vs. 24% for Obama.


POLL: People Still Blame Bush More Than Obama For The Economic Mess>

[DCKit]

1. The REAL news that you found an honest poll. nt

[MadHound]

2. It isn't that I blame Obama for causing this mess,

That blame goes on Bush the Younger, Clinton, and all the way back to Reagan.

What I do blame Obama and the Dems for is not taking effective measures to clean up this mess, especially when Democrats both Congress and the WH.

[pnwmom]

6. The Democrats never had enough votes to stop a filibuster

since Lieberman wasn't a Democrat when we had 58 votes plus Sanders.

[MadHound]

8. The Democrats didn't even try to put up a fight

Instead of forcing a real, talk all night, pee in a bottle filibuster broadcast live on CSPAN to show the world just what idiot obstructionists the 'Pugs were, Obama and the Dems backed down from the fight again and again.

Sorry, but that sad excuse doesn't fly. The voters did their part, but it was the DC Democrats that fell down on the job.

[pnwmom]

9. Put up a fight against what, specifically?

This isn't a Jimmy Stewart movie. There's no point in fighting a filibuster unless we have a chance of winning.

[MadHound]

10. Really? No point in fighting a filibuster

Funny, fighting a filibuster seemed to have worked quite well for a number of people, both Republican and Democratic. LBJ, the fight over the Bork nomination, Reagan, etc. etc.

But apparently you, like a number of other modern Dems would rather roll over than fight. And the American people are worse off because of it.

Stop making excuses, you're only embarrassing yourself.

[pnwmom]

11. You still haven't named any particular bill to fit your filibuster fantasy. And you

don't seem to understand that conditions today are not the same as in LBJ's time. Congress is stratified along partisan lines in a way that LBJ couldn't have imagined. He was President when there were conservatives, moderates, and liberals in both major parties. That gave a lot less power to party whips and made filibusters much harder.

[MadHound]

12. Huh?

What are you talking about? You're not making sense.

[pnwmom]

15. What "effective measures" -- ie. legislation -- could

Obama have accomplished that he did not.

[MadHound]

18. Ahh, thank you,

Well, that stimulus bill for starters. Instead of loading it down with forty percent tax cuts and tax credits, the most ineffective form of stimulus going, he could have actually made it a bona-fide stimulus bill.

He could have forsaken that freeze on Federal hiring(bonus, no Congress needed).

He could have refrained from a second "stimulus" last year that was mostly tax cuts and tax credits.

He could have introduced a real, true WPA style jobs creation bill.

He could have prevented Bernanke from monetizing the debt.

He could have actually fought for ending the tax cuts instead of doing his pre-emptive cave.

There is much more, but it's my bedtime. Goodnight.

[pnwmom]

22. And none of that could have overcome a Republican filibuster. n/t

[Enthusiast]

27. The President could have refused to sign

the bill that extended the Bush tax cuts. No filibuster could have changed tax cuts that were set to automatically expire.

[pnwmom]

44. That bill included an extension of unemployment benefits, desperately needed

by millions of Americans.

Obama wasn't willing to sacrifice those people and I'm glad he didn't.

[Enthusiast]

46. That lack of revenue has fueled

the fiscal debate. It was a huge mistake by Obama.

[pnwmom]

47. It wasn't a mistake AT ALL, it was a critically necessary compromise.

For millions of unemployed, the extension of unemployment benefits made the difference between just getting by and ending up on the streets. And the money went directly back into the economy.

[Enthusiast]

49. If Obama had been skillful (read Bill Clinton)

the Republicans could have saddled with their misplaced priority of greed and support of the wealthy over working America. There would have been more revenue to dampen the austerity push and the entire nation would be several notches up on the misery index. Obama made a HORRIBLE mistake.

[Enthusiast]

26. Thank you. nt

[Jakes Progress]

39. No point in being logical.

You are up against the meme. It is the "belief system" of too many that we are poor victims that the big, old republicans are just too mean and too strong for us poor little Democrats. It is the face saving system in full effect.

[uponit7771]

35. Yes, it's called rules...you guys fight harder against Obama and senate rule than for getting a...

...progressive congress.

[uponit7771]

36. "fight" = theatre, at the end of the day GOP could care less what theatre Obama put on

[badtoworse]

3. Regardless of who made the mess,...

...if Obama doesn't make substantial progress cleaning it up by Fall 2012, he will lose the election.

[Kurmudgeon]

4. Well, we cut Obama's support out from under him in the 2010 midterm.

If the United States doesn't wise up and fix that, it's pretty stupid to blame Obama.
I only hope all this Teabagger, union busting and other nonsense going on finally wakes up the sentient part of the voting populace.
If we get stupid and allow another GOP congress, I wouldn't be surprised to see Impeachment 2 Electric Boogaloo.
The GOPs are playing for keeps, time we took it seriously.

[badtoworse]

17. He had the House AND the Senate for two years and accomplished what?

Health care reform that is controversial, at best, and stands a good chance of being struck down by the courts? The Bush tax cuts were extended before the Republicans took over the House. I hate to say it, but Obama hasn't delivered very much and a lot of his base are pretty pissed off.

[Kurmudgeon]

20. Badtoworse, that's the biggest bunch of malarkey I've heard in awhile.

"hasn't delivered very much" Oh good grief...

[Enthusiast]

28. Why do so many of us

agree with Badtoworse? When Obama signed a bill to extend the Bush tax cuts it tore our hearts out. It was Obama's central campaign promise -to end Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. We felt it was a preemptive cave. Right at the very moment when we needed strength and leadership, Obama displayed weakness and faltering leadership. Why can't you recognize this caused massive disillusion among Democratic voters?

[uponit7771]

33. If us you mean fudrs or republicans that's obvious but if you mean critical thinking dems...

...they don't agree with you whatsoever. Obama promise meter shows most of you are full of shit on bashing Obama and do little to get him a progressive congress.

[Enthusiast]

40. And you will be the judge of "critical thinking dems"?

I don't think so.

[Avant Guardian]

42. 'Critical thinking Dems"

Wow, do you have it ass backwards lol.

[Kurmudgeon]

43. Because I can't let a pet belief destroy a Democratic presidency.

I guess because your sacred bull got gored, you'd be happy with another GOP presidency.
I wasn't happy, but things could be worse. Better be ready for 2016, the guy the GOP nominates will care even less.
Unless you and people like you can scuttle the 2012 Obama campaign, won't that be wonderful?
No disrespect, but you sound like a Naderite in 2000, see what that got us?

[GSLevel9]

23. jack+shit. nt

[uponit7771]

32. That's false and a republican talking point, fudrs are working this board hard

[uponit7771]

31. Yeap, the professional left will concentrate on Obama vs getting a progressive congress

[BrightSideOfLife]

5. Are we still a "nation of laws, not a nation of men?"

I don't remember hearing about anyone enforcing regulations for quite awhile now.

[humbled_opinion]

7. Yes but the upcoming campaign is going to go like this...

We know Bush left you a huge mess, we know other Presidents had huge messes left to them too. We know you told us that if we allowed you to spend a couple of trillion dollars (TARP, Bailouts, Stimulus) targeted to clean up this mess and allowed you to reform various programs, wall street and banking, that the mess would be taken care of and we would get back to some semblance of normal or at least really feel like we were headed in the right direction....

Well What happened?

Where is the leadership?

Are you just going to allow America to go down the toilet right in front of your eyes?

Almost 15 Trillion national debt.
You can't even get a single person to support your budget.
Budget defecits for the next decade.
Refusing to compromise on raising the debt ceiling.
Thats the campaign against him in a nutshell...

[uponit7771]

34. All Obama has to say is, "...that didn't work last time either, mine IS working slowly but surely"

[humbled_opinion]

48. Well the GOP is preparing

Graphs and historical records that they hope will show that Reagan got us out of a huge Recession left by Carter and Bush had a recession that he managed to get us out of too all at little national debt cost...... and they will show that Obama failed to get us out of the crisis in the same time frame.... the my way is better but slower mantra may not work....

We will see.

[kath]

13. Who's the illiterate hack who wrote that article?- "only 45% of the party is excited about the

electorate" Duh. Hey, doofus - the electorate is the *voting public*. Don't use 4-syllable words that you don't understand. What I think you meant to say is that only 45% of the party is excited about the field of candidates. Or something. Hard to tell, since I saw no such question in the poll. WTF?

Heck, a semi-intelligent high school student should know what the word "electorate" means...

[Electric Monk]

14. Too much work to include a link?

Found this with a little google-ing, but c'mon, remember to include the link next time, please.

http://www.businessinsider.com/people-still-blame-bush-more-than-obama-for-the-economy-2011-6

[unkachuck]

16. "People Still Blame Bush More Than Obama For The Economic Mess"

....so what does that mean for us?....we should be happy with more of the same?

[uponit7771]

37. No, that the nation as a whole doesn't hate Obama as much as the professional left does and can thin

..think critically about what got us into this crap. Also that it's obvious a good portion of people are working harder at bashing Obama than at getting Obama a progressive congress.

[NoodleyAppendage]

19. Bad memories die hard. n/t

J

[emilyg]

21. I don't care who is

to blame. Fix it.

[uponit7771]

38. I sure in the fuck DO care, I don't want the same idiots who DROVE us in the ditch to drive us back

...into the same mess with the same policies.

It DOES matter who fucked it up and Obamas measures HAVE gotten us a better economy slowly even with Republicans fighting and the professional left fighting him every step of the way.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Enthusiast]

25. Dubya is more responsible.

Everyone knows it. Some lie about it, but everyone knows the GOP crashed the economy.

[lonestarnot]

29. Well in that one only needs two brain cells to rub together to come to that conclussion, there's

still hope for the nation.

[SpiralHawk]

30. Rightly so...

[Avant Guardian]

41. Problem is

When Obama extended the Bush tax cuts for the rich for two more years, he extended the depression for two additional years.

[ismnotwasm]

45. Good

Credit where credit is due