An internal GOP memo prepared to brief some House Republicans as part of an ongoing probe into the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch deal takes direct aim at an unlikely target: Former President George W. Bush.
The memo directly blames Bush’s handling of the economic meltdown, and it coins a striking new phrase linking Bush and Obama and blaming both administration’s bailout policies in tandem for exacerbating the meltdown: “The Great Bush-Obama Economic Intervention.”
The memo goes considerably farther than many GOPers have been willing to go in publicly questioning Bush on the economy. It suggests that Republicans may soon begin making a public case that attacks both Bush’s and Obama’s economic policies when the next step in Obama’s overhaul of financial regulations hits.
“The financial crisis of 2008 had its roots primarily in ill-conceived government policies,” reads the memo. It was prepared by Republican staffers to advise GOP members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on how to handle a recent hearing on the government’s role in Bank of America’s purchase of Merrill Lynch.
The memo attacks Bush’s — and Obama’s — bailout policies for exacerbating the crisis. “Given the role of government policies in creating the conditions for the housing bubble which caused the financial crisis, it is remarkable that the prescription of the Bush Administration and the Democratic Congress was more government intervention in the economy,” it says. “The Obama administration has not missed a stride.”
You can read the memo right here. Other aspects of the memo have already gotten a little press attention, but no one has focused on the attacks on Bush.
It would be pretty interesting if Republicans begin making the case that Bush’s economic policies were disastrous, and use them to tar Obama’s. If you start hearing GOP attacks on the “Bush-Obama economic intervention,” you’ll know where they came from.
As truth leaks out the GOP tailspin continues.
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