@cooldud_21:
I was trying to understand the other side of the coin. Your post was educative and resolved most of my doubts. I still don't agree with some of what you say.
The banks have bounced back too now. And their recovery has been more spectacular than that of GM. So would you congratulate George W. for that?
The banks have rebounded, but said rebound is much less impressive than GM's simply because so much of their rebound is based on creative accounting practices, government money, new fees on customers, and outright fraud rather than creating jobs or increased production. Look at how Bank of America was taking money from the HAMP program while still foreclosing on homes.
Does Bush deserve credit for taking steps to prevent the collapse of the financial system? Of course, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't full of loopholes that the same banks who caused the mess in the first place could profit off of. Using bailout money for corporate bonuses for instance. The primary reason I brought it up in the first place is that people usually blame the bank bailout on Obama (not only the mere concept of a bailout, but the increase to the debt to pay for it), which wasn't signed by him.
Even then, I'm not entirely convinced that the financial industry collapsing would have harmed the United States economy nearly as much as the manufacturing industry collapsing. If it came to one or the other, I'd cheerfully let organizations like Bank of America go out of business to save American industry since there is actually a greater safety net for banks falling apart than there is for a company who makes seats for SUVs.
Second, projection 'based on' some data does not quite cut it with me. The way in which the projection has been made does not seem quite fair.
The CBO does this thing all the time.
Also, what lingering military costs (that keep increasing over eight years) are there once a war is over, apart from pensions and payments to the bereaved?
Well, first things first, Iraq and Afghanistan were open-ended conflicts when Obama entered office. At the time this projection was made, there was no reason to assume that operations in Afghanistan would cease any time soon. So it was entirely valid to assume that the occupation might not end until then; 2019 is only five years after the final draw down in Afghanistan and even that was vastly accelerated since the start of the year because of deteriorating conditions in that country. Beyond that, you don't magically wave a wand the minute troops leave and erase costs. The financing for these wars was borrowed rather than achieved via raising taxes and interest will have to be paid on that until the amount is repaid. In the past, that was often accomplished via special taxes.
Beyond that, you also have to take into account the cost of the war in material terms. Planes and vehicles wear down and either have to have parts replaced or be replaced altogether. In regions like Iraq and Afghanistan, the life expectancy of a tank is greatly reduced because of increased weathering from sand and heat, which are hell on machines. The simple fact that most of our arsenal was designed to fight in Europe rather than the Middle East doesn't help. Afghanistan is a particularly difficult situation because of the utter lack of railways and major highways into the region, especially safe highways, which vastly increases the cost of transporting items into that region. Depending on the location, it can cost anywhere for $40 to $400 dollars per gallon to deliver a single gallon of gasoline to the front lines.
Third, 'blaming the previous guy' is a valid argument. If the previous guy was a dick, then you should work your ass off to rectify his mistakes and reduce the deficit. Especially if you were elected on a platform of doing exactly that. Not doing that would squarely put the blame on you. Swings and roundabouts.
It's hard to fix the mistakes the previous guy made when his party says from the start that their number one priority is to make you a one term President. The GOP has not acted in good faith at any point in this entire Administration and expecting Obama to fix problems in spite of Congress is too much to ask for anyone.