@farmerman,
Having a bad day farmerman? I think the resolution of Republicans, to which you referred, to Oppose Obama's program came after their proposals for some amendment to the Obamacare legislation were rejected out of hand, and after it became clear he would force a preemptive bug out from Iraq, instead of the phased withdrawl they wanted. It is interesting to note that both Republican proposals, had they been accepted, would very likely have led to a much better situation for Obama and the country today.
Partisan politics is more or less the same on both sides of the political divide. However it would be very hard to depict the Democrat opposition as behaving in a particularly rational, wise or even intelligent way right now. The emerging "new" leadership in the Congress and the DNC doesn't suggest much in the way of reasoned adaptation to the new circumstances they face.
The recession of 2007/8 was indeed sharp and deep. It's causes were a bubble in the housing market caused by an excess of subsidized government capitalization and pressures to meet quotas for marginally qualified borrowers - plus of course all the greed and exploitive behavior that arises in such circumstances among lenders, buyers, flippers and others. Our recovery from this recession has been very slow by historical standards, and the current economic growth rate is far lower than what has prevailed for the past several decades. Indeed it appears this was a very likely factor in the outcome of the election.
