Most Americans Believe Financial Bailout Came During Obama's Term, Poll Finds

Socrates, 400 years before Christ, stated that the biggest downfall of any democracy was that most voters were ill informed ( or as it could be said: ignorant) about the candidates qualificatons. Therefore, there was a very serious danger to democracy by electing unqualified leaders.
That we had to experience during the previous administration. Not only Bush could not connect two sentences together, ( The lowest Intelligence Quotation or IQ since they began to keep that record ) but He turned this beatiful Country into a "Hamburguer Industry Country" all the manufacturing jobs lost went overseas. His leadership, or lack of it left the financial market in total collapse. Lets remember that his VP and his Secretary of treasury had to go to Congress begging for help. The Country had gone from structurally strong, ( According to Bush ) to the HOUSE IS ON FIRE !!! we need all the money you have to bail out AIG and all the other crook banks that took part in the housing collapse, thanks to deregulation, which started during the Reagan-Bush Daddy administrations ) That brings me to another issue that happened during those 12 years of the Reagan-Bush era. By the way, they presided the colllapse of the Savings and Loan, Which was tied to the housing market, hummm!! Think about it, coincidence, plan or practicing for the future ? Think about it !
That included the following :
1. Financial Institutions holding tax payer or depositors money
2. The dawnfall of the housing market.
3. Bail out of the financial institutions.
4. No bail out for the depositors, or , tax payers. They lost their money !!
Does it sound familiar? What happened to " Believe nothing of what you hear and a little of what you see "
Don't believe what I'm saying, please don't, but, please educate yourself by proving me wrong. Please, do it after you check a few books of HISTORY of the USA. Don't let me take you to the cleaners, as a matter of fact don't let anyone take you to the cleaners. Please Listen, double check, then we could give a well informed opinion. Fron a Disabled Veteran

After reading many of the posts below it only confirms the article above. many "citizens" of America know more about the contestants on American Idol than they do leaders of their own government. It is the DUTY of any citizen..to each other to be informed enough to construct a valid opinion about this country's direction and manner of operation...yet we fail at the one thing we can't afford to do for the sake of future generations...Lately I've heard the word traitor thrown around too much when the truth is we're ALL traitors by not bothering to get informed......
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I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take the power from them, but to inform them by education.
- Thomas Jefferson
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An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

- Plato

What do you expect when 80% of the public hasn't read a book in a year and sits in front of Fox news. They will feel the pain of their ignorance if they keep putting the corporate politicians in office, expecting a different outcome. What's that called, ignorance, or is it stupid, and you can't fix stupid. Fortunately you can go to Thomhartman.com for the wake up call.

With talk radio and FOX NEWS spreading so much misinformation it is not surprising that people don't realize it was Bush and the republicans who bailed out Wall Street.

Reading these posts on these boards for the last few years, this poll is not surprising. Our electorate, while under the impression of being better informed, are becoming less and less so. Far too many people have mistaken punditry and demagoguery for news...we are currently in a sad shape and it has nothing to do with economics, immigration or health care.

Chuck

And what about the huge Bush deficits from 2000 to 2006 BEFORE the democrats took over congress? Yep, get it straight.
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While republicans had a deficit, you can't compare a deficit of about 160 billion, which was the deficit the last time republicans had full control, to the 1.6 trillion we had last year and this year under complete democrat control.

While it may not have been passed during his term, it was written by his choice for secretary of the treasury and passed by the democrats in the house and senate. I would say that the democrats should have a large part of ownership of the bill.

Obama has wrenched his back trying to claim credit for the bailouts he vocally supported while pinning all adverse effects on "the mess he inherited". Let's hope his is not among the jobs "saved or created" by our current congress.

Actually, it's polling numbers like this that make me not so unhappy about our history of voter apathy, since most people don't know enough to cast a sound vote. Thankfully, the vast majority of those who know more about Twitter than TARP funds have no intention of voting either.

Here is the real truth that you journalists will not comment on! Get it straight or quit your job!

The Washington Post "reported" again today about Obama inheriting a huge deficit from Bush. Amazingly enough,..... a lot of people believe this nonsense. So once more, a short civics lesson.




Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress, and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democrat Party. They controlled the budget process for FY 2008 and FY 2009, as well as FY 2010 and FY 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 FY 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi and 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 FY 2009 budgets.




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 FY 2009. Let's remember what the deficits looked like during that period: (below)


If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the FY 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.




In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th.