The Bush administration's policy and lack of a true economic plan has once again plunged the financial and mortgage industry into collapse. The Federal Government has already bailed out Bear Stearns. Now they are bailing out Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae and the FDIC has just announced the take over of Indymac Bank which has $32 Billion of assets. As of this writing there are 90 Banks on the FDIC's list of problem banks, up 50% since the end of 2006. No one yet knows where it will end and how much it will cost the taxpayers.
In case one forgets, we had the Savings and Loan meltdown in the 1980's during Reagan's term in office. 50% of the Savings and Loan Industry went belly up. The Federal Government had to bail the industry out. The reports say that bail out cost the taxpayers $150 billion. Some suggest it was 5 times that much but the Federal Government has never given the American people an accurate count of what it actually did cost the taxpayer.
Both Bush and Reagan pushed through tax cuts which benefited the wealthy that fit their ideology of trickle down economics. Both of them also believed in deregulation and letting corporate America do what they want to do at the expense of the middle class.
The Bush administration also presided over the stock market scandal where the regulators did not regulate. The American people get themselves in trouble by voting Republican especially when Republicans have a sorry record on the economy and protecting the middle class. Mr. Bush's sorry approval rating of 28% comes after the people elected him twice. Now as he nears the end of the line the country is in terrible economic shape and no end in sight.
These so called conservative Republican Presidents promise the people tax cuts and then get into the people's pocket a hundred different ways. When the cost of the current financial meltdown is calculated and the debt created by this President is tallied, God help us all if people still think Republicans are conservatives.
