Fresh Start Political Thread

[nonniey]

Originally Posted by mooby

I disagree, I think Obamacare (just for you Chico) has been weakened enough that Obama's main accomplishment is leading us out of one of the worst depressions this country has seen. But I fully expect every one of our conservatives here to disagree with me on that - they will probably say he didn't do nearly enough that a conservative president would've done.

The most important action was this bi-partisan bill (I think it was the last bipartisan bill for that matter on major legislation):

"....Bank Rescue of 2008, or the Great Recession
The 2007-08 Financial Crisis resulted in an unprecedented federal intervention to rescue banks and restore confidence to the finance sector. The chief culprit in the crisis was the implosion of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and the collapse of the housing market that threatened many companies with insolvency. In the early days of the crisis, no one knew which companies were holding toxic assets and who would be next to falter. Lack of trust spread, with market participants unwilling to take on counterparty risk. As a result, companies were prevented from accessing credit to meet their liquidity needs.5

To address the crisis, Congress passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. The act created the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which authorized the U.S. Department of the Treasury to buy up to $700 billion in toxic assets from companies, which could then replenish their balance sheets with safer assets.5

The Treasury Department was also authorized to buy up to $250 billion in bank shares, which would provide much-needed capital to financial institutions. It bought $20 billion in shares each from Bank of America (BAC) and Citigroup (C). The Treasury Department later sold those shares back for a profit. In total, the government provided $245.1 billion in TARP assistance to banks and recouped $275.6 billion, for an investment gain of $30.5 billion...."

BTW this wasn't Obama although it was his treasury that executed the plan.