The Republican Policy Essay

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The republican policies were main causes for economic depressions in both cases of the Great Depression and the current recession that began in 2008. In the years before the Great Depression, republicans dominated the political scene. In fact, a republican was is office the previous three terms (Harding, Coolidge, Hoover) preceding the Great Depression. On a similar note, three of the four presidents leading up to the current depression were also republicans (Reagan, Bush Sr., Bush Jr.); the Democrat being Bill Clinton, who left the country with an economic surplus. While republicans are great at blowing up economic bubbles, they’re equally as talented at allowing it to pop. The republican economic strategy of tax-cuts for the rich are main…show more content…
When air is filling a balloon, the balloon grows and grows; but when the air is not regulated the balloon pops. The economic situations leading up to both depressions can be seen the same way. The Roaring Twenties, preceding the Great Depression, was a period of unprecedented American economic growth. That period of growth was ended by a severe and infamous stock market crash caused by a lack of regulation. Without control over the stock market, the government had no way to oversee all that was going on during the boom, such as “buying on the margin.” The government could not tell that these investments were going to go sour and therefore had no way of preventing it, leaving the American people helpless. Likewise, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose from 10,587 to over 14,000 in late 2007, followed by an average of merely 7,000 when the incumbent president (George W. Bush) left office. Again the Bush policy’s lack of regulation barred the government from overseeing certain investments, now fondly known as legacy funds. With more regulation a government official could have had a chance to see that investors were putting there money into a system destined to be disastrous. Instead, Wall St. was left deregulated and Bush left office with a national debt of over 11.3 trillion from a previous surplus left by the Clinton administration. History was repeated by the republican leaders, and in each case the country was left in worse shape than ever, leaving the democratic successor to clean up the
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