The money mess Obama or McCain will inherit

**Silverbird** · 09-23-2008, 06:44 PM

The next president's domestic policy cake has already been baked
By Howard Fineman
MSNBC

WASHINGTON - We like to think that presidential elections matter. And they do.
But this year — unlike any campaign I’ve ever covered — the outcome will mean decidedly less.......
........
For the president-elect, this will consist largely of navigating the vast and bewildering new economic world order created by Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke.
Unprecedented presidential inheritance
Of course, new administrations always deal with the consequences of the previous one, but this kind of thing has never happened.

Imagine if Herbert Hoover had constructed the New Deal just before turning it over to Franklin Roosevelt. Or if James Buchanan had declared war on the South before Abe Lincoln took the oath.........
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26854154/

**squalebear** · 09-23-2008, 09:01 PM

Like Paulson said today; The American Taxpayer isn't being placed on the hook !
They're already on the hook ! So are our children and their children as well.

**alevin** · 09-24-2008, 02:57 AM

Originally Posted by Silverbird

The next president's domestic policy cake has already been baked
By Howard Fineman
MSNBC

Unprecedented presidential inheritance
Of course, new administrations always deal with the consequences of the previous one, but this kind of thing has never happened.

Imagine if Herbert Hoover had constructed the New Deal just before turning it over to Franklin Roosevelt. Or if James Buchanan had declared war on the South before Abe Lincoln took the oath.........
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26854154/

Or Truman taking over from FDR 3 months after being elected vice-president in 1944? (Truman's first term 1945-1948)? I read Truman's auto/ghostwritten biography Plain Speaking last fall. It was an eye-opener. Worth reading. First Presidential biography I've read. Tonight I dipped back into it for a moment. Here are some direct Truman quotes about when he was a first-term Senator in 1935:

"Senator Wheeler set up a subcommittee to look into railroad finances. They were in bad shape and going bankrupt because the more money poured into them, mostly by the government,m the more
the tin-plate millionaires...the more they and the rest of the big-money boys and their lawyers stole."

Old Harry held hearings and did his own in-depth research in the Congressional Library, unlike most of his colleagues. "I went right ahead and found out the truth, and the result was that I was able to present to the Senate a new law regulating railroad finances, and oh, my, the shouting and screamng that went on from the big corporations and the holding companies." Anything about the situation he was describing that sounds even faintly familiar to anyone?? Let's hope we get a similar outcome from this round.

Harry was a believer in knowing your history. A famous quote: "There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know". He says the world has seen it all already, from the days of Rome forward, if not earlier, it's in the history books. Hope we have a better outcome for us than some of those old empires did.

Enough on presidents for one night, once or future?