Snow says let's debate U.S. economic policy course (wrong course)

[UpInArms]

http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=uri:2006-04-12T230600Z_01_N12396892_RTRIDST_0_ECONOMY-TREASURY-SNOW-UPDATE-1.XML

OXFORD, Miss. April 12 (Reuters) - Treasury Secretary John Snow on Wednesday lashed out at critics of the Bush administration's tax-cutting zeal and called for a serious debate about the U.S. economy's health and direction.

Snow sounded particularly irked at an initiative launched by a Democratic predecessor, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, which uses the name of the country's first Treasury chief to claim the current administration is "on the wrong track on almost every front" of economic development.

"From where I stand, and from where 5.2 million American workers with new jobs stand, the president's economic policies have been an unambiguous success and the underlying fundamentals are very strong indeed," Snow told students at the University of Mississippi, popularly known as "Ole Miss."

Rubin announced last week the formation of "the Hamilton Project," named after the first U.S. Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton, to highlight trade and budget deficits, income disparities, low savings and high debts that he said have mounted in five years under President George W. Bush.

"No other developed country in the world has this combination of imbalances," said Rubin, the Citigroup executive who headed the Treasury Department under former President Bill Clinton.

...more...

SnowJob is a fool and a buffoon :rofl: and will lose any debate with a true economist.

[stillcool]

1. another "bring-it-on" boy....

all form, no function.

[UpInArms]

2. I thought that the OP article smelled of fear - here's why

Hillary Clinton steps into economic fray

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B35A3958A%2DC3C9%2D4ADE%2D9E19%2D789585BC1707%7D&dist=newsfinder&symbol=&siteid=mktw

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- For a preview of the campaign battle over the U.S. economy that will dominate the run-up to the 2006 midterm elections, look no further than Sen. Hillary Clinton's Tuesday speech before the Economic Club of Chicago.

The speech didn't begin until evening, but that didn't stop Republican operatives from flooding reporters' in-boxes by midafternoon with missives painting the putative frontrunner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination as a serial tax hiker eager to undo what they described as the overwhelming economic success stories of the Bush administration.

<snip>

"Red-ink fiscal policies will undermine America's competitiveness. We have to ask ourselves whether our taxing and spending policies are in line with our economic goals. Do we have the right priorities and values in the federal budget?" Clinton said.

On the tax front, Clinton said tax cuts aren't enough by themselves to secure the middle class. "It takes the right tax system and the right investments, including infrastructure. And right now we don't have either," the senator said.

...more zings to the Red-Ink Republicans...

[OneBlueSky]

3. every time a neocon mentions all the "new jobs," I cringe . . .

no, it's worse . . . steam starts coming out of my ears, and I take ten deep breaths to keep from exploding . . .

whatever jobs are being created under BushCo are minimum wage jobs that cannot compensate for all the good paying high tech and manufacturing jobs that are either being moved offshore or eliminated completely . . .

they call it progress . . . I call it organized crime . . .

[xchrom]

4. i'll take rubin in that debate.

with real wages declining with some alarming rapidity and and the dollar in a precarious war with deflation, i think rubin has a real leg up on snowjob.

[Demeter]

5. If I Were A Republican, I'd Worry More About Jail Than Tax es

Especially right now.

[ozymandius]

6. Snow makes it too easy to punch his doughy mug.

And to take a swing at his whoring for a failed fiscal policy too.

Have you noticed in the past two weeks - the garden variety whore, like Snowjob, have been more vocal than usual? And now we see other friends of the Bush junta coming forth like Jack Kingston of Georgia.

I expect we'll see more less-familiar names echoing the message vomited by the Secretary of Streetwalking.

[pinniped]

7. If everything's going so well, why does Snowjob always....

have to so his debt ceiling lifting magic trick?

Where the hell are these 5.2 million jobs? Up his ass?

How many people have lost their jobs on Snowjob's watch?

Snowjob is an irrelevant fool who couldn't even run a lemonade stand.

[HughBeaumont]

8. Do we have a tracking of people who hold MULTIPLE jobs?

What are the quality of said jobs? I noticed a lot of jobs being created in low-paying sectors, but manufacturing lost 7 thousand jobs this month, once again highlighting our continually weak industrial sector under Lancelot Link. Strong economies have strong industrial/manufacturing bases. You got to have good paying jobs to accommodate those who cannot get a college degree for whatever reason.

How are those wages holding up to inflation? Pikkety-Saenz survey says the wages for the lower 90% of earners have been stagnant since 1970 (and, nothing against our 70s counterparts, while working longer overall hours), while the upper-echelon not only has increased their wealth in the past 10 years by anywhere from 29 to 1444%, they've also gained government privileges hand-over-fist to maintain and even increase their wealth further. A job's not a job's not a job.

Understand that I don't want the economy to be bad on purpose because I loathe this backwoods pigfucker and his oily neo-con cabal. What I'm failing to grasp is why no one calls their continual goalpost moving, not tracking ONLY the number of full-time-with-benefit jobs created. What I'm failing to understand is how they're consistently in the black when all I see in the paper is how (insert MNC here) is laying off (insert single or double digit number here x 1000) jobs. When are THESE accounted for and addressed? It seems they never are. Nor does anyone address the fact that in 60-something months, this economy has only met the birth-death rate (150,000 jobs needed to accommodate new workers going in and coming out) I think, 11 of them. That's not a good percentage by any stretch. Why also does no one address the amount of workers considered employed under dubious circumstances?

I'm just angry that these people continually praise how this smoke-and-mirrors economy is going when all I see in Northeast Ohio are dead ghost towns with closed factories, lots of vacant office space, malls that have now turned into makeshift flea markets, not ONE notice of job creation and job cuts to Ohio's plants almost daily. My cousins are about to lose their jobs at Packard. Where do they go? I'm sure it's this way around America, but why is no one but us stepping up to the plate and calling these assholes on their lies?