Permitting corporate greed can be laid at the doorsteps of every presidential administration from Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush. During those administrations, deregulation of banking institutions ran rampant with little or no regulation enforcement. This allowed greedy bankers to take advantage of greedy or uninformed people to saddle them with subprime mortgages they cannot repay resulting in record home foreclosures. ...
The other major contributor to this recession is the enormous federal deficit that's growing by leaps and bounds because of the incompetence of George W. Bush. Bush inherited an annual surplus from Clinton, and the national debt was being paid down.
Unfortunately, after the 9-11 terrorist attack, Bush fell right into Osama bin Laden's plan to bankrupt America. Bush reacted by starting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with no plan to pay for them. Those wars have drained the treasury of more than $1 trillion with no end in sight. ...
In the mid-1980s, when Mikhail Gorbachev became president of the Soviet Union, his country also was facing dire economic times. He recognized that the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan was draining their economy, so he ceased all military action, withdrew Soviet soldiers and began working to restore his nation's economy.
President Obama should follow Gorbachev's example or our nation will continue to bleed both the blood of our brave soldiers and the finances of our nation. I pray that he will.
Paul L. Cook
Augusta
