Which political party bears most of the blame for the recess

[kiryan]

CNN poll

GOP 42% 32489
Both 38% 29595
Democrats 17% 13021
Neither 4% 2749

I picked both, but really if I had to pick 1 party, I would've picked GOP and I might be being a little dishonest with myself for picking both instead of laying the blame primarily on GOP.

The arguments that it was the GOPs fault are easy, pushes for less banking regulation, at the helm in congress for 14 years and whitehouse for 8... deficits from war spending and give aways to foreign nations... Bush's tax cuts...

I'm having a hard time coming up with anything substantial against the democrats. Push for more minority home ownership (despite the statistics showing they can't afford it)? All the social entitlement programs which aren't directly related to the collapse, but indirectly cause other countries to be concerned about our long term financial stability which could've contributed... yea I'm really stretching here. The stimulus program which some would argue saved us and others would argue just ended up being wasted to keep union employees employed. Not very successful programs like help for home owners.

The case for neither would be
Greenspans fault and he had a long tenure that spanned both D and R administrations...
the American people made the decisions

someone help me out here, cuz I just hate to blame this on the GOP!

[Sarvis]

The Democrats ran bad candidates in 2000 and 2004, thus allowing Bush to win and ruin our economy?

[teflor the ranger]

Recessions are a natural part of a capitalist society. Blame all Americans and anyone that relies on Americans as an economic driver.

[kiryan]

I'll take it Sarvis! Damn those democrats.

[Ragorn]

Personally I blame the Democrats more for crimes of omission than commission. They've had the power to intervene to stop the deregulation of the financial sector, but their weak resistance efforts did little to address the problem. When the Congress shifted in 2006, we heard a lot of big words, but it wasn't until Obama took office in 2009 that we actually saw new issues being pushed onto the House floor... the period between 2006 and 2008 was very weak for the Democratic Congress.

I have a hard time attributing the recession to social programs when we're funneling so much money into the overseas war effort. It costs more to run the Iraq war for a month than it would to pass universal health care for a year, so even that's a red herring.

[kiryan]

I guess thats true, Dems had 2 years to do something, but didn't (or were blocked by Bush). Yet at the same time, by then the damage had already been done, just not seen.

Yea spending overseas on the war is huge. Talk about redistribution of wealth, taking all of our money and paying contractors all over the world to support the war effort / build new bases / feed the troops ect.

But really, the American consumer and the WSJ fat cats did it to us. Without the collapse of the banks, because we spent more than we could afford on our houses, we could've kept our head in the sand another couple of decades.

[Todrael]

Recessions are a natural part of a capitalist society. Blame all Americans and anyone that relies on Americans as an economic driver.

I blame the reality-system they operate within.

[muma]

Yea I also don't think you can blame a political party for what's going on right now. Also to me Repubs and Democs (LOL) are 2 sides of the same coin.

[Sarvis]

Yea I also don't think you can blame a political party for what's going on right now. Also to me Repubs and Democs (LOL) are 2 sides of the same coin.

Good and Evil are two sides of the same coin. What's your point?

[kiryan]

You can blame Democrats and Republicans if you believe they are supposed to be protecting us from our own stupidity and evil corporations.

[teflor the ranger]

Recessions are a natural part of a capitalist society. Blame all Americans and anyone that relies on Americans as an economic driver.

I blame the reality-system they operate within.

That's a bit broad, though probably technically correct.