During the presidency of President George W. Bush, our government used conservative means to run our economy. President Bush did not practice one liberal belief when it came to the economy. Bush’s economic policies were similar to Reaganomics. President Bush walked into office with a record surplus and left office with the greatest economic downfall since the great depression. Some would argue that this was due to his conservative ideology and influence on our financial system. Once the housing bubble burst in 2007, it was clear that we needed someone with liberal beliefs to fix our problems.
- President Bush did not have any liberal beliefs when it came to our economy and many believe that if he did, we would not be in our current situation. President Bush practiced basic conservative economics. This meant several massive tax cuts and deregulation of the markets. This is what President Reagan did in the 1980s and Bush continued this for the 8 years he was in office. Conservatives preach tax cuts as a way to fix the economy due to the belief that if Americans keep more of their money they will spend it. However, this usually does not work during times of economic hardship because there is no consumer confidence and people will save there money and not spend it. Many Americans would argue that deregulation of the markets is the main reason we are in this mess. Since there were little to no laws regulating what bankers and traders do, they were able to take incredible risks without worrying about the consequences. Wall street ended up playing a game with derivatives by taking bets on their bets. Bankers were giving mortgages to people they knew could not afford them which created the housing bubble. These are the dangers of deregulating the markets. The liberal belief of regulating markets could have saved us from this mess.
- As soon as President Obama took office, he turned his liberal beliefs into policy by passing the infamous stimulus package. This was done because of the simple liberal belief that by definition, spending money is the only way to stimulate the economy. He is also in the process of passing serious economic reform. If we do not change the rules of our markets, the banks will take the same risks and we will find ourselves in the same situation. It was liberal beliefs that helped us balance our budget while President Clinton was in office.
It is a liberal belief that businesses can enjoy prosperity while being regulated. It is also a liberal belief that growing government in a responsible way will stimulate the economy. Only time will tell if President Obama’s policies and liberal beliefs will fix our economy. Either way, Americans have reason to trust this democratic president because the last time we had a surplus was the last time a democrat held the presidency.