This story was previously titled "Closing The Book On The Bush Legacy - The Atlantic Politics Channel"
Closing The Book On The Bush Economic Legacy - The Atlantic Politics Channel »
Posted By deathray 2 months, 2 weeks ago in Political Opinion
These findings are impossible. Everyone knows that Republicans are better stewards of the economy than Democrats. 'Mericans know this in their gut! Their gut!
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deathray
Hm...summarizing a life...Investment banker, sailor, unintentional gourmet cook. Ex US Naval officer, also Foreign Service. Split my time between NYC and Miami Beach ...
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deathray2 months, 2 weeks ago
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fta:
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Thursday's annual Census Bureau report on income, poverty and access to health care-the Bureau's principal report card on the well-being of average Americans-closes the books on the economic record of George W. Bush.
It's not a record many Republicans are likely to point to with pride.
On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush's two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country's condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton's two terms, often substantially.
the article goes on to say that this is not a good augur of the efficacy of tax cuts as long term economic stimulus. now, obama's economic plan is not clinton's and i'm sure there will be discussion about the effort to balance the budget; it must be noted that a similar attempt in 1936-37 perpetuated the great depression.-
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deathray2 months, 2 weeks ago
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you can download the us census report from the following website, if you want to get under the covers about all this:
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http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty08.h... -
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hyperbola2 months, 2 weeks ago
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Well, why limit ourselves to Bush. This kind of rot set in with Reagan, when 50% of American families lost their life savings, taxes were raised twice on average Americans and only lowered for the super-rich. Reagan also gave "corporatism" in the government is first big boost with his "star wars" boondoggle for paying off corrupt "defense" corporations. That corporatist model has now extended to many other areas, e.g. "financial" corporations and health care.
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Clinton was a disaster in that he continued the corporatist corruption drift (which borders on fascism, see Mussolini's definition of fascism) and Obama looks to be even worse with his payoffs to corrupt corporations and oligarchs.
Reviewing President Rahm Emanuels Health Care Speech
Not to be too much of a downer, but I found Obama's speech tonight a big O-bummer. Really, other than his very important reminder that "we're all in this together," it was disappointing (although that's probably not the right word, because it implies I expected something more). And remember, while I have at times been critical of Obama, I've been very supportive of him on health care...up until tonight. Here's a list of my basic problems:
....
In sum, when you couple this with the speech's fawning praise for lunatics like John McCain and Chuck Grassley and add to it the news that the White House is holding closed-door compromise meetings with corporate Democrats tomorrow, I felt like I was listening to a parsed screed by President Rahm Emanuel, not a call to arms from the Barack Obama who actually ran for president. There was lots of passionate talk about the problem, and little courage to demand a serious solution.
I mean, I seem to remember an election just a few months ago that resulted in a Democratic president, and huge Democratic majorities in Congress - and I seem to remember there was a Barack Obama who only a short while ago said geting those electoral results was the only obstacle to a full-on single payer health care system, much less a weakened public option. But again, I guess it's just too bad that after that election, President Emanuel now rules America.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/09/11/reviewin... -
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dunkirk2 months, 2 weeks ago
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Someth9ng isnt right in Propeller land, I just plused the comment and it went from 96% to Neutral. When I put the mouse over it it was 27 plus and one neg (roflmao, I think someone on the right may have disagreed they will point to the article as an accomplishment it shows Bush and the Republicans achieved the transf3er of wealth to the rich from the middle class). Maybe its using right wing fuzzy math but 27/1 doesnt seem Neutral to me.
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gamahuche2 months, 2 weeks ago
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Or, my first thought this morning, as I returned to thev fray with my early-morning cuppa:
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Legacy?LEGACY!! What F***ING legacy???
Good!
This is better than exercise in terms of stimulating blood-flow, deep-breathing and adrenalin.
My doctor will be pleased today! -
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georgiadipirro2 months, 2 weeks ago
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Economic insight and analysis from The Wall Street Journal
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Bush On Jobs: The Worst Track Record On Record http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/01/09/bush-on-...
The Bush administration created about three million jobs (net) over its eight years, a fraction of the 23 million jobs created under President Bill Clinton’s administration -
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Bacalao2 months, 2 weeks ago
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deathray2 months, 2 weeks ago
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it never ceases to amaze me that in spite of significant evidence to the contrary, tax cuts continue to be the economic stimulus method of choice for the republican party.
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even the chicago school is trying to spin this, although much of their approach has been discredited.
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miklkit2 months, 2 weeks ago
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What do republicons have against children?? They increase the size and cost of government know that our children will be paying for it. They start wars for corporate profit knowing our children will be paying for it long after they are dead. Plus they cut funding for programs to help feed and clothe and educate our children.
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Why do republicons hate our children so much?-
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bigG2 months, 2 weeks ago
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I am not so sure they hate our children, grandchildren, etc. as much as they love themselves.
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They want it all and they want it NOW.
Every generation seems to look at time now without regard to potential effects to the future. This is true all the way back to slave owners in the old plantation days and continues today(cheap -and sometimes illegal - labor). -
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lfergie8122 months, 2 weeks ago
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Republicans are the center of the universe.
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http://home.comcast.net/~theyellowdog/joerepublica...
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gamahuche2 months, 2 weeks ago
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Ah - but EXTREMELY profitable for a few..
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And don't worry - that will trickle down to the rest of us!
Why, I read just yesterday that Halliburton is hiring a few good men to lick the Cheney-mobile clean and - yes - to empty the imperial ****pots and do likewise!
You can't accuse those guys of not putting their money where other people's mouths are..
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hyperbola2 months, 2 weeks ago
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Well, we are also being lied to by our present administration - and the lies are just as big as bushies.
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The Obama Administration is Actually Increasing the US Presence in Iraq
Believe it or not, the U.S. presence in Iraq is growing under the leadership of antiwar president Barack Obama. A recent Washington Post by reporter Walter Pincus explains that when U.S. troops are "withdrawn," their jobs are taken over by......mercenaries -- the notorious "contractors," who are hired for fabulous sums of money to sustain the huge U.S. presence there.
And there are some really awful aspects of this process, including:
• The cost of the contractors is substantially higher than the cost of the soldiers they replace. (That is, the cost of the war is going up as the U.S. "scales down" its presence in Iraq)
• "Where private guards replaced soldiers, many more guards were needed to do the same job." So the numbers and cost of the U.S. presence is going upward, not downward.
• The new contractors are overwhelmingly "third-country nationals" employed by U.S. corporations under contract from the U.S. Defense and State departments. That is, with unemployment at 60% in many places around Iraq, the new jobs created by these contractors are not giving employment to unemployed Iraqis.
• And just to underscore that this is not a process of de-escalating a U.S. presence, the "third country nationals" brought in to replace U.S. soldiers are required to speak English, but they need not speak Arabic. So we learn that the process of cultural imperialism is continuing--there is no effort to have the U.S. presence become blended into Iraqi civil society. In fact, this and so many other actions work to coerce the Iraqis into integrating into the globalized U.S. political economy.
Just another glimpse of the long term effort of the U.S. government to colonize Iraq.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/09/14/the-obam...
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mmrhe2 months, 2 weeks ago
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Clearly, a disasterous record
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And yet what to make of these 'conservatives' marching on Washington this weekend?
Where were they when their incomes were slowly but surely eroding while their well-to-do bretheren feasted at the trough of tax cut heaven?
This is disturbing news although should we really be all that surprised?
I'm struck by the thought that to many, the Bush years were a green light to any kind of 'line your pockets, no one is watching' mentality like we haven't seen in a century.
And these morons in Washington this week don't even know it! -
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pc252 months, 2 weeks ago
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hate to tell you what you already know but continue to ignore Obama quadrupled the deficit in a mere 8 months so spin away my little droogies spin away
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http://i618.photobucket.com/albums/tt267/Bertman04...-
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deathray2 months, 2 weeks ago
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that's the expected deficit...and, in spite of your spin, this is about the bush 44 administration's dismal economic record, and some of the economic consequences that have fallen out of it, for subsequent administrations to deal with.
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congrats on the clockwork orange reference; appy-polly-loggies in advance for any further references on my part.
here's one:
initiative comes to thems that wait.
an aphorism followed by the bush 44 admin on economic policy for sure. -
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cowboygrandpa2 months, 2 weeks ago
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FTA:
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"The Census' final report card on Bush's record presents an intriguing backdrop to today's economic debate. Bush built his economic strategy around tax cuts, passing large reductions both in 2001 and 2003. Congressional Republicans are insisting that a similar agenda focused on tax cuts offers better prospects of reviving the economy than President Obama's combination of some tax cuts with heavy government spending. But the bleak economic results from Bush's two terms, tarnish, to put it mildly, the idea that tax cuts represent an economic silver bullet.
Economists would cite many reasons why presidential terms are an imperfect frame for tracking economic trends. The business cycle doesn't always follow the electoral cycle. A president's economic record is heavily influenced by factors out of his control. Timing matters and so does good fortune.
But few would argue that national economic policy is irrelevant to economic outcomes. And rightly or wrongly, voters still judge presidents and their parties largely by the economy's performance during their watch. In that assessment, few measures do more than the Census data to answer the threshold question of whether a president left the day to day economic conditions of average Americans better than he found it.
If that's the test, today's report shows that Bush flunked on every relevant dimension-and not just because of the severe downturn that began last year.
Consider first the median income. When Bill Clinton left office after 2000, the median income-the income line around which half of households come in above, and half fall below-stood at $52,500 (measured in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars). When Bush left office after 2008, the median income had fallen to $50,303. That's a decline of 4.2 per cent."
Yeah that Bush !!!! Ya sure have to give him his due.
He is the worst of the worst !!!!
But hey the stupid ones still want to argue that Bushes economic policies were good !!!!! When ya see someone claiming that, they made money off of his duplicitous dealings.
Don't forget that some "Americans" only care about what they get from any deal. They don't care if they screw the other person, in fact if they do they think it is better !!!!!
That is what "business" has become. Instead of goods and services offered at a fair rate and a good deal for both the buyer and seller.
Yep the Bush credo "Greed is good if you are the one who is profiting"
Close the door on them and never let them return, not them or any like them !!!!!-
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beavith12 months, 2 weeks ago
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jeez, cbg. i thought you blundered onto the most important part of the article.
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so national median income dropped 4.2%, but the market was down 40%.
the fact that Clinton's term ended, we were in a bubble. do you think its even possible that, had we not HAD a bubble, median income would've been less that that $52K .
i'm actually not defending Bush. i'm merely pointing out that this story is really rather a spin.
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canadianrancher572 months, 2 weeks ago
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I have problems with articles at times that switch between actual numbers of people and percent of actual population,There was no mention of the increase of the population in general so any reference to an actual increase in just a number makes it hard to determine if a statistic was good or bad, where as a increase or decrease in a percentile is easier to follow.
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Now when it comes to some of the policies that were followed by President Bush or his administration there were problems. The idea of tax cuts is one that at times does work but as more wealth becomes concentrated in fewer hands the idea seems to lose value, to me the idea of the war was maybe one of the greatest costs to the American economy as well as the increase in the size of government.
It mentioned in the article about economic cycles,and I'm still one who thinks that this can totally disrupt any governments plans, during Bush's terms the world did change alot there was increased competition from global markets which caused outsourcing of jobs by American firms, also this outsourcing likely put a halt on increased wages in alot of sectors and yet the cost of living continued to go up.
I hope it doesn't sound like I'm trying to defend the last administration because I do think that many mistakes were made and the country is worse off because of some of those mistakes, but when we look at a time period over even 4 to 5 years it is very hard to compare apples to apples, One comment I will echo though is I do feel that the greed factor has grown in your country and that affects everyone eventually.-
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DarkWizard2 months, 2 weeks ago
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canadianrancher57,
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Even though population numbers may vary (usually increase) over time, the percentages are based on those populations. Therefore, the percentages still have a comparative value regardless of increases or decreases. This is why these numbers carry weight in determining the effectiveness of an administration and its policies over a given period.
What is not accounted for in these statistics is the longterm effects of each administration and its policies. For instance, Reagan's union busting, tax-cuts for the rich, deregulations, and increased military contracts to the private sector had an immediate impact of overall increased economy and wages. However, this "revitalization of the economy " pushed us toward NAFTA, which led to some big companies going offshore and our current trend of outsourcing, and an increased push for bottom line profits even as those jobs and companies left the U.S.
Therefore, in the longterm, we have pushed more bad policies, in the name of capitalism, which have led to "bubbles" to keep the economy from collapsing or appearing to collapse. Now, we are paying for the shortsightedness of these corporations and administrations and the laws and policies enacted or repealed to these ends and are paying for them. Unfortunately, we still don't know the longterm effects of what happened under Bush III as Obama has only been in office a short time.
The Republicans will try to say that whatever happens now is all on Obama, but that's not true as I illustrated with my cause and effect scenario of Reagan's administration and policies. Nor, is everything that happens under Obama's term(s) anyone else's fault. However, sometimes it's hard to see where the lines need to be drawn.
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lfergie8122 months, 2 weeks ago
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What is missing here is not only the decrease in average income but the increase of inflation by the devaluing of the dollar. His reckless spending on the "war" budget along with his tax cuts to the rich only drove the value of the dollar lower which drove up the price of foreign products including oil. In all fairness to Bush, he did not accomplish this alone, he had the full support of his Republican congress and his VICE-president.
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oldslowjim2 months, 2 weeks ago
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What a load of horse hockey on here. It would seem a lot of folks believe that tax INCREASES will make the economy take off and as a result make the poor rich! The depth and knowledge of the economic discussion here is nothing more than republican and democrat talking points.
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I read the wall street commentary linked by 'georgiadipirro'. It says Bush inherited a recession and left with a recession. Does anyone remember the "tech bubble" that also destroyed a lot wealth. Does anyone remember 9/11 and the effects it had on the economy? Is it any wonder that the economy during bush's terms of office wasn't spectacular?
As to the tax cuts being problem, think again. The mosaic that was the background to what has happened is much more varied than one simple item. It is federal spending, federal policies regarding mortgages, easy credit and a myriad of other things that caused the "risk bubble" to grow to unsustainable levels. Tax cuts may have been a small part of problem but far from the main reason.
Federal spending sucks money out of the economy and puts it into the hands of an oligarchy, i.e. the president and congress. Does anyone here really believe our politicians can best spend our money to create a growing economy that benefits everyone?
Easy credit, especially for mortgages, was another problem. Keeping interest rates for a long time breeds disdain for the real risks involved. You also have to wonder just how much the money supply increased to fund this easy credit. This has nothing to do with cutting taxes.
Anyway, there are a number of other federal policies, such as war spending, that contributed as well as undervaluing the risks being taken on wall street. Pointing to tax increases as the culprit is simply taking a democratic talking point in order to sound knowledgeable.
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