Congress may pass the bills, but Bush has the final say so, since the Democrats don't have enough votes to override his veto. All the new spending bills were approved by Bush. So essentially, he still get what he wants. Economically speaking, America has been gutted by 8 years of the Bush White House and his puppet congress. There is no way the Democrats caused this mess since taking control of Congress 2 years ago. They inherited a financial trainwreck, and they can't make any significant changes because Bush would just veto these measures.