GOP Senate candidate says Obama made economy worse...

[kentuck]

Former Rep. Pat Toomey says that our economy would have been better off today if we had allowed AIG and General Motors and a couple of big banks to go under. He says they should not have been saved.

He was on the Morning Joe Show this morning with Mika and crew, along with Maria Bartiaromo. (sp?)

But it was an interesting conversation because I'm sure many Republicans, and some Democrats, agree with him. He said all the spending by President Obama only made the economy worse.

Unfortunately, we cannot prove something that never happened. We don't know if the economy would have been worse or better if AIG and General Motors and CitiGroup had been allowed to go under? Maybe we would be in a deep depression right now? Or maybe our economy would be growing once again?

But, it seems to me, this argument is the bottom line for the next election?

[onenote]

1. I've not seen a single reputable economist take the position doing nothing was an option

THere are arguments about whether the steps that were taken in the stimulus bill were the best medicine or not, but as for allowing the financial sector to go bellyup? Anyone who thinks that doing so would have resulted in an economy that was in recovery a year later is full of crap.

[onehandle]

2. GM going under would have thrown us into full depression.

Thousands of supplier companies would have gone down with them.

[JBoy]

5. Yes, the knock-on multiplier effects are what would kill things.

[Dawgs]

9. Agree. We probably would have seen 25%+ unemployment in Michigan.

:hi:

[dmallind]

3. Sounds like a lot of DUers, at least in the latter part

They wouldn't mnormally claim the economy would be better (because it can, apparently, never be better again) but would agree the evil corporations should have not been bailed out.

[Lost4words]

6. you have a job dont you, ask me how I can tell? nt

[Dawgs]

10. You disagree with them? Wow!!!

I feel sorry for you.

[dmallind]

12. How because I said exactly the same things when I didn't have one.

I don't let personal circumstances cloud my ability to understand data and reach rational conclusions.

[BootinUp]

4. utterly preposterous.

Economists with functioning brains tend to disagree according to my sampling.

[MidwestTransplant]

7. There is simply NO WAY the economy would be doing better at this point if GM went under

it's not even debatable. Whether you want to argue that the economy would have been better off long term is another matter but that's not even realistic for many years down the road. When you have 110,000 people losing their jobs at once plus all the ancillary businesses it cascades. We WOULD NOT be better off.

When Toomey runs I guess he is giving up on Michigan.

[rgbecker]

8. Others say...

If only the South had won the civil war!

[LynneSin]

11. Did Toomey sleep thru the entire Bush administration?

nuff said!

[kentuck]

13. All the "tea-baggers" slept thru the Bush Administration...

and are just now waking up to the awful government intervention in their lives. This is an important discussion for Democrats to have, in my opinion.