Better off than 2008? You decide

Republican candidates have been asking, "Do you feel better off than you did four years ago?"

Well, four years ago this month, in September, 2008, the Bush administration was proposing a $700 billion package to bail out "failing financial firms." Even so, Sen. John McCain, in a presidential campaign appearance, said, "The fundamentals of the economy are strong." At that same time, in mid-September, Lehman Brothers was collapsing.

Here is a September, 2008 news summary of the situation at the time. It was chaotic. Read the last two paragraphs in particular.

"Senator John McCain said that he planned to suspend campaigning and seek a delay in the upcoming presidential debate this week, so that he could return to Washington to try to forge a consensus on a financial bailout package.

"A short time later the campaign of his Democratic opponent, Senator Barack Obama, issued a statement saying that the two presidential candidates had spoken on the telephone Wednesday morning about issuing a statement on the financial difficulties facing the nation. It did not address canceling the debate.

"Aides to Sen. Barack Obama said that he was inclined to go ahead with the debate. 'There are serious global financial issues at stake and the American people deserve to hear how the next president will handle them,' said a senior Obama adviser.

"The proposed $700 billion bailout package has met with deep skepticism from Democrats and Republicans alike. McCain and Obama, who have both said that they favored taking some kind of action but warned that significant changes were necessary, have been under pressure to signal what they would do.

"Both McCain and Obama have said that action must be taken, but have urged greater oversight built into the plan, to monitor how the Treasury Department plans to use taxpayer money to take distressed assets off the hands of failing financial firms, as well as guarantees that taxpayer money is not used to enrich Wall Street executives.

"The fiscal crisis has put both candidates in a tremendously uncomfortable position — torn between an unpopular plan to use $700 billion in taxpayer funds to bail out Wall Street firms, or to risk what the Bush administration warns would be a widening financial crisis that could wipe out the savings of retirees, make it difficult to secure mortgages or college loans, and send the economy into a downward spiral."

As this news was reported that September, The Bush Administration was entering its last three months of his term in office. The widening financial crisis would be inherited by a new president.