Face it – the GOP has a really bad memory. It became evident in January of 2009, when Republicans suddenly realized our economy was in serious trouble the day President Obama was sworn into office. They constantly ignored that the great recession had already been going on for over a year and anytime someone on the left tried to remind them, the Republicans stuck their fingers in their ears and shouted “na na na – I can’t hear you. Stop blaming Bush!”.

As matter of fact it has been so bad that the Republicans have either ignored or tried to rewrite a big part of this history of this recession – TARP. They constantly act like TARP was an Obama planned, enacted by him while in office. But here are the key facts around TARP:

• During the 2008 campaign, Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain took an unprecedented step to suspend his campaign to work on TARP.
• TARP passed the Senate in October of 2008, with both Senator Obama and Senator McCain voting for it.
• On October 8, 2008, President George W. Bush signed Tarp into law.

There were a number of Republicans in the House that voted against TARP (108 to be exact), so President Bush could have pulled out the veto pen, especially given the fact that the House was 20 some votes short of a veto-proof majority. But he didn’t. Instead he signed it into law and became the President that actually enacted TARP.

Another interesting supporter of TARP was Paul Ryan. This is the GOP’s man when it comes to budget and monetary policy. They always turn to him for guidance and plan, yet they ignore the fact that he supported a key piece of legislation that the GOP now opposes.

As we prepare to go into another debt ceiling fight, it would be beneficial for people to remember this. TARP added a lot to the national debt, but no where near what the Bush tax cuts did. There is no side that is innocent when it comes to national debt, as I showed in my last post, but the only way to really address the problem is with honesty and not mere finger pointing.