Bush Still Blamed Most For Bad Economy

(Caricature above is by the talented DonkeyHotey.)

The Republicans had tried their best in the last three years to shift the blame for the recession and loss of millions of jobs on to President Obama, and away from George W. Bush. That's because they were complicit in whatever Bush did. They happily went along with his deregulation of Wall Street, his tax cuts for the rich, and his unnecessary wars (all of which combined to help kick off the recession).

But their attempt to shift the blame has only had a partial success. People are very unhappy with the government's failure to fix the economy (or really do much of anything to try and fix it in the last few years). And they give President Obama part of the blame -- not for causing it, but for not doing enough to fix it. But the people still know who caused the mess we're in, and they give George W. Bush much more credit for the current bad economy than President Obama. Even 49% of Republicans say Bush has a great deal or a moderate amount of blame for the current economic mess.

The most recent Gallup Poll asking people to assess blame for the current bad economy was done June 7th through 10th. They surveyed 1,004 random national adults (and the survey had a 4 point margin of error). Here are the results of that survey:

HOW MUCH DO YOU BLAME GEORGE BUSH/BARACK OBAMA FOR THE CURRENT ECONOMY?

General Public
Bush...............68%
Obama...............52%

Independents
Bush...............67%
Obama...............51%

Republicans
Bush...............49%
Obama...............83%

Democrats
Bush...............90%
Obama...............19%

Figures like these should make Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie) very nervous. While many people don't think President Obama has done enough to fix the economy (much of which is due to GOP obstructionism), they still blame Bush for starting the whole mess. And what is Romney offering? Nothing but a return to the old failed Bush policies -- deregulation of Wall Street, massive tax cuts for the rich (and corporations), and more spending on the military (including an extension of the Afghan War, and very possibly a new war with Iran).

Haven't we had enough of the Reagan/Bush policies? Would they work any better with Romney in the White House? Of course not! It's time to return to sane economic policies -- and the only way to do that is to vote the Republicans out of power.