A while back, I was resisting the growing sentiment that W. has been our worst president ever; as we flail about in the midst of the current financial crisis, however, resistance becomes harder to mount (who would have ever thought it possible to combine Depression- and Vietnam-era flashbacks in one administration?). But how much of this disaster can we put on George W. Bush, really? Surely a crisis of this magnitude had many fathers.
It all depends on what our understanding of the nature and causes of the current predicament are. If a large part of the problem has to do with financial deregulation and a lack of proper oversight, then the problem can be traced back to the 'Rubinomics' of the Clinton Administration. So the question is, what exactly can we blame Bush for?
As I understand it, the shit really hit the fan when Henry Paulson allowed Lehman Brothers to collapse. And according to Floyd Norris, Bush might have avoided the current bust, or lessened its impact, if he'd been more flexible on tax policy: after cutting taxes in order to start a boom (people like Paul Krugman, of course, question whether the cuts caused the boom, or raise doubts as to how much of a boom there was in the first place), W. should have then raised taxes in order to deal with the enormous ensuing budget deficits, and in order to 'apply the brakes' to runaway growth.
Is that enough to justify talk of 'George W. Hoover'?
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