Government ends TARP, makes $15.3 billion profit

[bedstuy]

Uh by that standard a lot of work in Washington is done by career workers in the various agencies (true) and we shouldn't credit political leaders when they pass things (not true). It seems you just want a reason to not credit President Bush for TARP and that's fine bit he and the Treasury Department had involvement. They reviewed the proposal and sent it to Capital Hill.

One career staffer involved in this was Neel Kashkari, who was the Republican nominee for California Governor, by the way

Right.  You judge a President based on what they did, not what happened during their term in office.  For example, you don't criticize FDR for the start of WWII or praise Bill Clinton for the peace dividend.     

George W. Bush was so destroyed as a political figure and a leader that he played essentially no role in dealing with the financial crisis.  He couldn't get his party in line to vote for TARP and he didn't reassure the markets or make any brave or significant decisions.  He just happened to be the President who had to sign legislation that any sane President would have signed.  It was either TARP or the total meltdown of the world financial system.  That's a no-brainer, which is fortunate because we're talking about George W. Bush. 

The other point is that treasury only needed TARP because they made huge mistakes at the outset.  Namely, they let Lehman Brothers go under which set off a chain reaction which would have sent us to something much worse than the Great Depression.  So, the top policy makers screwed up royally with their initial judgement and then recovered with amazing work of career treasury and Federal Reserve employees.  So, how do you score that?  The decisions George W. Bush actually made backfired horribly and the diligent work of other people bailed our country out. 

[The_Doctor]

We'll agree to disagree. I feel your argument falls too close towards selective bias - e.g, picking career workers to reap the credit and political leaders the blame for poor decisions based on subjective metrics. In turn, I think while Bush was not perfect, I believe the financial crisis' origins was out of his hands for much of his tenure as President. So I can't fault him as much as others would.

But we can agree to disagree.

[bedstuy]

We'll agree to disagree. I feel your argument falls too close towards selective bias - e.g, picking career workers to reap the credit and political leaders the blame for poor decisions based on subjective metrics. In turn, I think while Bush was not perfect, I believe the financial crisis' origins was out of his hands for much of his tenure as President. So I can't fault him as much as others would.

But we can agree to disagree.

I don't fault Bush for the financial crisis.  There's a lot of blame to go around and most of it goes to the financial industry.  Nobody really saw the crisis coming to the extent it happened and it was part of a much larger trend. 

But, I grade his decisions for what they were and he didn't help solve the problem, except that he happened to be President so he had to sign legislation, as any sane President would have done.  He certainly didn't help by appointing Hank Paulson and keeping the SEC weak and feckless during his administration.  He certainly didn't show any leadership or rally anyone.  The key decision makers were Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner, not George W. Bush.  There's no real credit that belongs to President Bush and there's some amount of blame.

You can disagree with those conclusions, but facts are facts.  You can't just give someone credit because they happened to be President while someone in the government found a solution to a problem.

[Deus Naturae]

Measuring government spending in raw numbers makes absolutely no sense.

Are you actually going to respond to my argument or do you just think your declaration is self-evident? As I've already stated, it makes sense to look at spending/GDP if you're trying to consider its effect on the economy. But, if you're trying to look at the actions of the President specifically, spending/GDP can be misleading since the President only has control over the former (see the example of Defense spending I gave earlier).

[Deus Naturae]

Plus, my point about regulatory growth still stands.

No.  Also, a profoundly misleading statistic and it betrays a lack of understanding of what a regulation is.  There are regulations that impose a new significant burden on industry.  There are new regulations that basically just update old regulations.  And, there are regulations, most of them, that do things like set out a filing deadline or a list of definitions.  So, it's ridiculous to lump them all together or act like these are all laws that restrict freedom.  A regulation on point-source mercury emissions can be a matter of costing or saving billions of dollars and many people's health/lives.  A regulation about how to file something properly is something quite different.

Alright, I see what you're saying. Here's a chart for economically significant regulations:

[bedstuy]

Plus, my point about regulatory growth still stands.

No.  Also, a profoundly misleading statistic and it betrays a lack of understanding of what a regulation is.  There are regulations that impose a new significant burden on industry.  There are new regulations that basically just update old regulations.  And, there are regulations, most of them, that do things like set out a filing deadline or a list of definitions.  So, it's ridiculous to lump them all together or act like these are all laws that restrict freedom.  A regulation on point-source mercury emissions can be a matter of costing or saving billions of dollars and many people's health/lives.  A regulation about how to file something properly is something quite different.

Alright, I see what you're saying. Here's a chart for economically significant regulations:

Two points:

How much of that increase is just because of the ACA and Dodd Frank? 

What is economically significant?  And, how many of those regulations are significant in that they have tremendous benefits?  It's easy to count the cost of a new scrubber for a coal plant against a regulation, but what about the attendant economic benefits from improving the environment and public health?