How soon we forget who is to blame

It’s like Alzheimer’s. That terrible disease that has been affecting individuals is now infecting the whole country. We forget!

When this repression, caused by the deregulated investment bankers, hit us, George W. Bush’s administration gave $30 billion to J.P. Morgan to purchase bankrupt Bear Stearns. Then when Lehman Brothers was going bankrupt, Republican Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson refused to bail it out. That caused a collapse of credit in this country and throughout the world. No one could get credit including big business.

Desperate to recover, the Republicans began to bail out the other companies that could restore credit: $280 billion went to AIG. Then the Republicans went to Congress and gave them an ultimatum. Congress was told by the reluctant Paulson that they would have to come up with $700 billion, the TARP bailout. After that another $20 billion bailout went to Citigroup, all under the Republican administration.

This situation, not caused by responsible capitalism but by laissez-faire capitalism, had to be dealt with, but it was not President Obama who caused it. The Bush tax cuts added other billions to the deficit caused by this debacle, all under the Republican watch.

If Congress cut all spending for Medicare, Social Security, federal social programs, education and training and all defense spending, they would not reduce the current deficit by 1 cent. Yet the Republicans are trying to correct our problems by cutting spending. This has caused the loss of millions of jobs and is ruining the economy, but who is being blamed? Obama.

Thomas C. Curtis

Rolling Meadows