Logo

Americans Blame Wall Street and Bush for Recession

Published: Oct 13, 2010

 Finance       

Last week, Bloomberg polled 1,000 Americans, asking them their opinion about the state of the economy (not good) and for their predictions of the future (pretty dim). In addition, people were asked who they thought was responsible for the country's economic mess.

According to Bloomberg's findings, along with half of those polled saying their children are likely screwed due to the events of the past few years, "Wall Street financial firms and the mortgage industry get the most blame for the country’s economic weakness." In fact, "more than three-quarters of the 1,000 Americans polled say the former has hurt the economy, while more than 80 percent fault the latter. Former President George W. Bush also comes in for criticism, with three times as many people saying he hurt the economy as those who believe he helped it."

Meanwhile, Americans are "about evenly split between whether [President Obama and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke] have helped or hurt the economy," and 34 percent say Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner "has had a negative effect on the economy."

As for the question of taxes, "Americans overwhelmingly want the wealthy to carry more of the burden of putting the government’s fiscal house in order. Sixty-five percent say lawmakers should consider raising taxes on the rich back to where they were 10 years ago." And, at the same time, "they also want to consider measures that would fall more broadly on all Americans such as cuts in spending on roads, bridges and public transport, curtailment of extended unemployment benefits and reduced subsidies for college loans."

They're also pretty darn ticked off about that defecit. "'How much waste and fraud is going on makes you sick,' says Joe Strelnik, a 55-year-old [poll respondent and] retiree in Euclid, Ohio. 'Our children and our grandchildren are going to be paying for it.'"

***