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Science Forum Index » Energy - Hydrogen Forum » WASHINGTON POST: BUSH TANKED THE U.S. ECONOMY...
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| Screen Ranger... |
 Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:29 am |
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Yup......Every body knows it.... and can see it in their eyes,
every thing went wrong with our lives these days.........Why
90% Aren't Happy Any more?
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Bush tanked the U.S. economy
By BONNIE ERBE
GUEST COLUMNIST
Recession, like menopause, is a retrospective diagnosis. You
don't know you're in one until you've been in it for at least
two quarters (referring to a recession) or a year (for
menopause). The question for me is not: Are we hitting a
recession in 2008? It is: What has made the economy so buoyant
that we didn't submerge into a recession several years ago?
Wall Street giant and billion-dollar bank Merrill Lynch
announced last week that the United States had entered a
recession for the first time in 16 years. It was a
controversial call denied by a chorus of economists who do not
think we're there yet. But the announcement comes from the
bank's chief American economist, David Rosenberg -- widely
respected on Wall Street.
The largest factor driving this country's economy into
recession has been the Bush administration's profligate
spending. Please read the following quote from the
conservative/libertarian think tank Cato Institute's Web site:
"George Bush is mired in a fiscal policy crisis worse than
anyone could have envisioned when he entered the Oval Office
.... This crisis is the resurgence of record federal deficits
.... The deterioration of America's fiscal health cannot be
blamed on ... pro-spending coalitions in the
Democrat-controlled Congress -- although certainly some of the
blame lies there. It is almost exclusively the creation of the
Bush administration itself."
Sound familiar? The article, which I edited heavily (taking
out references that would have dated it immediately, such as
the use of the term "Reaganomics"), is about George H.W. Bush,
not George W. But it might as well have been about the son.
Forget about the $127 billion surplus that President Clinton
left the nation after he moved out of the White House or the
fact that Clinton paid down hundreds of billions of dollars in
federal debt. President George W. Bush has produced nothing
but deficits since he's been in office. Last year's, at $163
billion, was the lowest in five years. But it probably would
not have been if his trillion-dollar war in Iraq hadn't been
paid for "off budget." That little budgetary trick by the
administration means that cost isn't tallied in the deficit
and debt figures.
Then, of course, there's Bush's multitrillion-dollar tax cut.
Here's a lesson Bush never learned and one that probably could
have kept this country out of recession: You can't fight an
expensive war AND cut taxes simultaneously without sending the
U.S. economy into the tank.
That is just what Bush has done.
There are other contributing factors, of course. The housing
bust has hurt this consumer-driven economy mightily. Americans
felt richer and borrowed heavily against home equity at the
height of the boom. These factors kept corporate profits and
the economy growing.
But the bust that has now followed was highly predictable.
Real estate always runs in cycles. The last real-estate boom
lasted an incredibly long five years. The president should not
have been piling up irresponsible debt, knowing the crash
would come at some point.
Then there is oil. Prices have been high since Hurricane
Katrina, more than two years ago. When you consider that early
in Bush's first term oil was selling for about $25 per barrel,
and we're now paying about four times that much, it's
incredible that fact alone didn't drive us into recession
territory much sooner.
What has kept our economy growing these past few years? My
theory is: immigration. When millions of people flood into
this country with few possessions, buy homes and fill them
with consumer goods, of course our consumer economy is pumped.
But that artificial pump-up won't last forever. Unfortunately,
the overdevelopment they prompt and the environmental
degradation they create will.
What's the solution? It won't be resolved with this guy in the
White House. Cut defense spending. Use a pay-go system for all
future domestic spending programs and tax cuts. Get the
deficit down and bring the surplus back. And while we're at
it, pay down the national debt. |
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| Hiccum Blurpaedius... |
| Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:29 am |
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On Jun 19, 2:29 am, "Screen Ranger" <ScreenRanger... at (no spam) aol.com> wrote:
Quote: Yup......Every body knows it.... and can see it in their eyes,
every thing went wrong with our lives these days.........Why
90% Aren't Happy Any more?
The golf courses are loaded with good ol boys slapping each other on
the back.
The executive branch needs to be completely destroyed. These tax
sucking maggots have done nothing good for me. It is time they get
what is coming to them from the hand that feeds them.
Exterminate the christian government |
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| Screen Ranger... |
| Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 11:57 am |
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"Hiccum Blurpaedius" <hiccum at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote in message
news:f169efda-fa39-431f-a8d4-fccd16a35a28 at (no spam) z66g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
On Jun 19, 2:29 am, "Screen Ranger" <ScreenRanger... at (no spam) aol.com>
wrote:
Quote: Yup......Every body knows it.... and can see it in their
eyes,
every thing went wrong with our lives these days.........Why
90% Aren't Happy Any more?
The golf courses are loaded with good ol boys slapping each
other on
the back.
The executive branch needs to be completely destroyed. These
tax
sucking maggots have done nothing good for me. It is time
they get
what is coming to them from the hand that feeds them.
Exterminate the christian government
True, but comparing to $9.8 Trillion Bush's Deficit, it's
still 1/10 of a DAMAGE..... Most media will not broadcast
this fact, you heard it from Congress debate directly. |
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