How Bush Totally Ruined America's Economy

[indigobusiness]

Book Review: George W. Bush: The GOP’s CEO


How George Bush thoroughly screwed up our economy and what needs to be done to fix the economic mess.
Reviewed by Lawrence J. McNamee

It’s Still the Economy, Stupid: George W. Bush, The GOP's CEO
by Paul Begala
Simon & Schuster, 198 pages, 2002

As the November presidential election nears, there is no shortage of “Bush-bashing” literature for the reader to choose from. Democrats, independents, and some critical Republicans have all weighed in on the genealogy, psychodynamics, foreign policy style, and ethical framework of the incumbent presidential candidate. I thought it appropriate to look for a critique of George W. Bush’s record on economic policy and found one in Paul Begala’s It’s Still the Economy, Stupid.

The author is a partisan Democrat from Texas, who along with James Carville of Louisiana was a top political advisor to former president Bill Clinton. I did not open the cover of It’s Still the Economy, Stupid expecting a Fox TV News-style appraisal of Bush’s economic policy, and I wasn’t disappointed. While Begala does not hide his admiration for the “Man from Hope” and the New Democrat mix of progressive federal policy and realistic expectations, much of his humor-tinged criticism of the current Chief Executive’s economic policy is worth the reader’s consideration.

The author asks some important questions which deserve answers. How did we go so quickly from a surplus to a staggering deficit? If Clinton’s economic policies caused the current sluggish growth rate and decline in jobs, why weren’t economists in the 1990s raising alarms during Bill Clinton’s eight years in office? Conservative economists predicted economic downturns which never came, but no one I know of envisioned a situation after 2001 where we would have a modest economic recovery for America’s investor class and continued bad news for American workers. When It’s Still the Economy, Stupid was written, the consequences of President George W. Bush’s beliefs about Iraq and a $50 dollar-a-barrel price for oil were not yet a reality. Paul Begala’s charges against the Bush administration in 2002 are serious enough to make a reader in 2004 wary of a second Bush term.

snip

http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=895

[no_hypocrisy]

1. * has lied before Day One about the state of the economy in order to

justify his "remedy" for it.

Here's the proof:
* made a contradiction during the third debate. He said that by the time he took office, he inherited a recession from the Clinton White House, and he had to do something quick. Hence the tax cuts.

But if you remember when he was campaigning and right after he took office, the economy was fine, there was a surplus, and therefore, no reason for the government to keep "your money". And we all got checks in the mail and the tax cuts went forth.

Now c'mon! Which is it? It doesn't matter because he lied in order to get those tax cuts.

And he's still lying and he wants those tax cuts to be permanent (although I don't see HOW, as a subsequent Congress could modify or abolish them altogether).

[cosmicaug]

2. Permanent tax cuts.

no_hypocrisy wrote:

But if you remember when he was campaigning and right after he took office, the economy was fine, there was a surplus, and therefore, no reason for the government to keep "your money". And we all got checks in the mail and the tax cuts went forth.

Now c'mon! Which is it? It doesn't matter because he lied in order to get those tax cuts.

And he's still lying and he wants those tax cuts to be permanent (although I don't see HOW, as a subsequent Congress could modify or abolish them altogether).

And, if you remember, those tax cuts only passed because they had expiration dates attached (why doesn't anyone in the "liberal media" bring this up?). Because, when they looked at those tax cuts over the years it was obvious, even to republicans, that the effects on the federal budget were simply insane and unsustainable and thus the expirations feature was inserted so that they could pretend that it wasn't such a bad idea.

The funny thing is, these same people will now undoubtedly vote to make them permanent when nothing has changed to make the fiscal implications of these tax cuts change in any way. I suppose that if they don't do this, someone like Grover Norquist can spin no making the tax cuts permanent as a tax raise and all politicians fear that characterization nowadays (whether it happens to be true or not).