Blame Bush.

Pretty much.

Go right ahead. Using figures by Reaganomics architect Bruce Bartlett, Andrew Sullivan writes:

When you check reality, rather than the alternate universe constantly created by Fox News and an amnesiac press, you find that Bush had a chance to pay off all our national debt before we hit the financial crisis - giving the US enormous flexibility in intervening to ameliorate the recession. Instead, we had to find money for a stimulus in a cupboard stripped bare - its contents largely given away, by an act of choice. 

I'm tired of being told we cannot blame Bush for our current predicament. 

We can and should blame him for most of it - and remind people that Romney's policies -- more tax cuts, more defense spending-- are identical. 

With one difference: Bush pledged never "to balance the budget on the backs of the poor." Mitt Romney has no qualms about doing that very thing. And he will, if he is given the chance.

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Reaganite Bruce Bartlett (also referenced above) lays it out in black and white: 

Republicans would have us believe that somehow we could have avoided the recession and balanced the budget since 2009 if only they had been in charge. This would be a neat trick considering that the recession began in December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.They would also have us believe that all of the increase in debt resulted solely from higher spending, nothing from lower revenues caused by tax cuts.  

And they continually imply that one of the least popular spending increases of recent years, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), was an Obama administration program, when in fact it was a Bush administration initiative proposed by the Treasury Department that was signed into law by Mr. Bush on Oct. 3, 2008. 

Lastly, Republicans continue to insist that tax cuts are highly stimulative, often saying that they add nothing to the debt, when this is obviously ridiculous. 

Conversely, they are adamant that tax increases must not be part of any deficit-reduction package because they never reduce deficits and instead are spent. This is also ridiculous, as the experience of the Clinton administration clearly shows. The new C.B.O. data confirm these facts.

PS:
"According to a new Gallup survey, over two-thirds of the country say Bush deserves either "a great deal" or "a moderate amount" of blame for the economy, compared to just over half who say the same about Obama" (MMFA, Poll Shows Americans Still "Blaming Bush" For Economy | Media Matters for America - http://goo.gl/1p8c4 June 14, 2012 )

Stimulus - Response - Stimulus - Response

The flip side of Austerity.  Stimulus = injecting $$ into the economy, to get money flowing again, so people can buy, businesses can expand and hire.  Stimulus is about spending and creating jobs. 

GOP/CONSERVATIVE HYPOCRISY/DOUBLESPEAK ON STIMULUS (they know it works, but campaign against it!)

• Wonkbog: The Romney campaign says stimulus doesn’t work. Here are the studies they left out. (8/8/2012) http://wapo.st/O5YqWZ
• National Memo » LOL Of The Week: Romney Accidentally Speaks The Truth (5/28/2012) http://goo.gl/8CdHY
• In a single sentence, Mitt admitted that everything the GOP has been saying about the economy since 2009 is a lie. Asked why he wouldn’t cut spending immediately, the presumptive nominee said: “Well, because if you take a trillion dollars, for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5%.”
• Chamber Of Commerce Government Spending, Pro-GOP | ThinkProgress (2/2012) 
• the Chamber has a selective memory. It was a leading proponent of Obama’s 2009 stimulus legislation promising that the tax cuts and even many of law’s spending provisions would “provide stimulus and get Americans back to work.” Allen has called the law a “jobless stimulus.” 
• Though the measure passed almost entirely along party lines, the Chamber spent millions in 2010 to defeat the Democrats who backed the bill — and some of that money may have come from foreign businesses. The $789 billion law has been the largest increase in spending in the Obama presidency.
• Romney Bashes Stimulus, Then Fundraises In Home Of Stimulus Recipient | ThinkProgress (May 2012) http://goo.gl/qv4Jy
• Darrell Issa: "I called for these policies (SHH) but everyone knows they don't work" /economists' view, 2/2011
• Allen West: praises work funded by stimulus (tho he is against it) 2/8/2011
• Republicans call for DEFUNDING half-finished projects that they called for (2/8/2011, ThinkProgress)

Messaging ("Framing") for 2012

Democrats and progressives are terrible about framing our own issues in our way; too often our leaders/spokespeople appear on the defensive, accepting a negative framing of some vote or issue as they try to defend against it. We need to get better at this.

The blog post that I've copied below, from Winning Words Project, is excellent in breaking down what "frames" (or messages) we should be getting out there, to affirmatively own our messages, rather than reactively. (More on framing, from me, here: Messaging, Framing)

Bad framing: David Axelrod on the President's economic message, and then, how he shoulda done it:

The below is from Crooks and Liars:

One of our objectives at The Winning Words Project is to help our elected officials, including (and especially!) the president, articulate the Progressive story so that it:

• Resonates with a wide audience, including Independents and those who fall in the middle of the political spectrum.
• Cuts the Republican smears off at the knees.
• Gives our policies the moral argument that's needed for their acceptance.
• Establishes our own frames without repeating Right Wing frames (which only reinforces them, even when used in debunking them).

The Crap Economy: Whom/What Do Voters Blame?

You'd think--given the media and Republican babble--that the Republican victories on Nov 2 2010 = "repudiation of Barack Obama" and in particular his handling of the economy.

That would be a very confusing repudiation.  As I noted earlier--voters do NOT want what Republicans have been hawking as economic fixes (tax cuts, hate the stimulus).

And it seems like Barack Obama is not even at the top of voters' "Who to Blame" list: he ranks 3rd--
after "Wall Street" and "George W. Bush".

Fuller information here.

_____
2012 Update: The economy? It’s still Bush’s fault - The Washington Post (1/18/2012) -- A majority of Americans believe that former President George W. Bush is more responsible than President Obama for the current economic problems in the country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.