Well, first, what you say is correct. The way Al Franken put it, is that Bush left us an out of control train careening toward the edge of the cliff. Obama came in and introduced measures to stop the train, and now must push it back up the hill. We were hemorraging jobs because of Bush at a startling rate and heading straight for a great depression. Job growth has consistently grown since Obama took office. It's slow, but it has steadily headed in the right direction. Bush's catastrophe can't be fixed over night.
He brought the troops home from Iraq, a war we had no business engaging in anyway (No WMD's). He is bringing troops home from Afghanistan. This will be very good for the economy. Now think about what Bush did. He gave a deep tax cut, did away with the budget surplus that Clinton had us in, and THEN he started not one, but TWO wars without raising taxes. He wanted to play, but he didn't want to pay for it! That has never happened. We've never gone to a war without raising taxes to pay for it, but Bush put us in two. Every time I think about it, it just blows my mind.
Then Wallstreet blew up, and here we are.
Our debt will grow simply because of what Bush did to our country. Obama added to that debt, but not to throw the money away on wars, but to invest it in this country so that we can work our way out.
Deficit spending is coming down, and will have an even greater reduction in 2013. But we have a huge debt. That debt is a Bush legacy. I know that people scream you can't blame Bush anymore, but its the fact. We were a country headed for destruction, and it is not going to be fixed overnight. But we are heading in the right direction, and we will continue to do so. Romney would have taken us back to Bush policies, and we can't afford that, we can't do it again.
Can it be faster? Possibly. But the Democrats are working alone, because the Republicans have refused to compromise in good faith. There may be a better way out there, but it is not the Republican way. Perhaps this election will encourage them to bring their ideas to the table, so that we benefit from constructive debate (and not this temper tantrum they have been throwing) where each side gives a bit and gets a bit, and hopefully, finds a way to speed the recovery.
Republicans did this country a HUGE disservice when they decided that compromise was a dirty word. Their tactic has been total domination, and nothing less was acceptable to them. We all watched helplessly as they threw their tantrums and played their games, when they should have been working on the problem. But they had reached a point where they couldn't risk a democrat breathing on them. Should that happen, they would have been primaried.
They are softening now---some of them---and I look forward to them adding their brains to the discussion, while leaving the tantrums at the door. I'm sure they have some good ideas, but they don't have the only ideas. They MUST accept and work with other ideas.
I wish the improvements were faster and more deeply felt, but half of our legislatures refused to work on the problem in good faith. And yet, it has still improved. Once they add some of their input, perhaps it will speed up. That's my hope.
