Did you ever take into account the veto power Bush has? Kind of hard to get things done with a President that will threaten to veto pretty much anything thrown at him. Recession I believe started before 2006. Gas Prices are EVERYONE'S fault - not just the dems.
Gas prices - nothing was done when the problem started. Just think, last year (July 2006) — Prices at the gas pump jumped 104 percent from $1.47 per gallon in January 2001 to $3.00. The average household with children will spend about $3,815 on transportation fuel costs this year, an increase of 100 percent or $1,912 over 2001 costs. Again, that all happened between 2001 and July 2006. Granted we're worse off now. Dems and Republicans are at fault at least from 2006 to now. From 2001 to 2006 I would have to put the majority of the blame on the republicans.
Now it would be easy to blame the oil companies (in 2005 the five largest oil companies reported a record $110 billion in profits - could they have put some of that money towards refining? Exploration?). Somehow, someway we have to get to OPEC and knock them back a bit since something like 70% of what we pay at the pump goes in that direction.
Bottom line is that something has to be done.