01-21-2004, 02:10 AM
On the economy, the downturn is definitely the fault of President Bush. It wasn't the tax cut as most Democrats claim cause really it hasn't even had enough time to take effect. What started the downturn was when as President-elect, and through his first months in office, Bush constantly talked about how the economy was in trouble. What we were seeing at the time was a market correction, something economists were saying was inevitable even as early as 98 when things never looked better. But all we kept hearing was how "bad" the economy was, over and over, and it really became a self-fulfilling prophecy. What would have been a short-term correction ended up being a long-term recession.
I can tell you from personal experience, in the early part of 2001 when the company I worked was still doing very well, the owner basically said, "The President keeps talking about the economy being 'bad.' Now, things don't seem bad, but let's just hold off on any new hires until we see how this pans out. And, let's hold off on all non-vital purchases, just for the time being."
Right there you can see how the words - not actions, just the words of the President have an impact. Less hiring and corporate spending created a measurable slowdown in the economy, which led people to say, "Hey, maybe the President is right," and tighten up even more. Each report grew worse and worse due to this, and a nation that was being told to expect the worst slowly came to believe it.
Even Joe Lieberman warned at the time, "The American economy seems to have a slight head cold right now; if we take the medicine President Bush is offering, I'm afraid we are going to have a bad case of pneumonia." ( <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news....1.5.htm">http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news....1.5.htm</a><!-- m --> )
So why was Bush claiming that the economy was in such bad shape, when in reality it wasn't?
Simple - the American people, those that voted for him and those who didn't, didn't support his enormous tax cut. So he set out to try and convince people that the economy was bad - which in Republican terms means in need of stimulation through tax cuts. If he could make everyone think things were starting to turn to shit, he believed he could justify his larger tax cut. Even better, since he knew the economy was truly in good shape, once he got his tax cut passed, he could stop pretending there was a bad economy looming, and instead claim there would have been a downturn, but his tax cut saved the day.
Only there were two problems. A) The economy at this point WAS getting worse due to the panic he created, and B) 9/11 happened, and furthered the damage.
9/11 itself isn't to blame for the economic troubles, but it did give Bush a nice scapegoat for the growing economic downturn he created. The fact that he's also the biggest spending president we've ever had (domestic spending is up 27% I believe since he took office, military spending even higher) just puts us even further in the hole, and there doesn't appear to be any end in sight.
I can tell you from personal experience, in the early part of 2001 when the company I worked was still doing very well, the owner basically said, "The President keeps talking about the economy being 'bad.' Now, things don't seem bad, but let's just hold off on any new hires until we see how this pans out. And, let's hold off on all non-vital purchases, just for the time being."
Right there you can see how the words - not actions, just the words of the President have an impact. Less hiring and corporate spending created a measurable slowdown in the economy, which led people to say, "Hey, maybe the President is right," and tighten up even more. Each report grew worse and worse due to this, and a nation that was being told to expect the worst slowly came to believe it.
Even Joe Lieberman warned at the time, "The American economy seems to have a slight head cold right now; if we take the medicine President Bush is offering, I'm afraid we are going to have a bad case of pneumonia." ( <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news....1.5.htm">http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news....1.5.htm</a><!-- m --> )
So why was Bush claiming that the economy was in such bad shape, when in reality it wasn't?
Simple - the American people, those that voted for him and those who didn't, didn't support his enormous tax cut. So he set out to try and convince people that the economy was bad - which in Republican terms means in need of stimulation through tax cuts. If he could make everyone think things were starting to turn to shit, he believed he could justify his larger tax cut. Even better, since he knew the economy was truly in good shape, once he got his tax cut passed, he could stop pretending there was a bad economy looming, and instead claim there would have been a downturn, but his tax cut saved the day.
Only there were two problems. A) The economy at this point WAS getting worse due to the panic he created, and B) 9/11 happened, and furthered the damage.
9/11 itself isn't to blame for the economic troubles, but it did give Bush a nice scapegoat for the growing economic downturn he created. The fact that he's also the biggest spending president we've ever had (domestic spending is up 27% I believe since he took office, military spending even higher) just puts us even further in the hole, and there doesn't appear to be any end in sight.