FLASHBACK: Romney Economic Advisers Predicted Bush Tax Cuts Would Lead To Huge Job Growth (updated)

Last edited Sat Aug 4, 2012, 10:30 AM USA/ET - Edit history (1)

FLASHBACK: Romney Economic Advisers Predicted Bush Tax Cuts Would Lead To Huge Job Growth

By Pat Garofalo

Mitt Romney and his economic advisers have spent the week claiming that Romney’s economic plan will create 12 million jobs, as they attempt to change the subject away from a Tax Policy Center report showing that Romney’s tax plan would mean a big tax increase for middle-class families.

A Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis shows that, far from creating 12 million jobs, Romney’s economic plan would kill 360,000 jobs in 2013 alone. But this discrepancy is perhaps less surprising considering that the same advisers who gave Romney his number — including economists Greg Mankiw and Glenn Hubbard, who both worked for former President George W. Bush — estimated that the Bush tax cuts would lead to massive job growth:

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Unfortunately for American workers, these rosy predictions failed to pan out. In fact, total employment in the U.S. economy created only 2.4 million new jobs by the end of 2004, or less than half of what Hubbard predicted. By 2007 the economy was running nearly 8 million jobs short of what Hubbard predicted.

The Bush tax cuts, instead of leading to the millions of jobs Hubbard promised, led to the weakest job growth of the post-war era. So not only does Romney’s tax plan fail to add up, but his job growth plan is going to fall far short of its goals, if history is any example.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/04/640021/romney-advisers-bush-tax-cuts/

Updated to add:

Inside the Romney Boom (36,000!)

Josh Marshall

Has anyone noticed that the Romney advisor behind the ‘Romney Economic Boom’ is the guy responsible for one of the most spectacularly wrong and wildly optimistic economic predictions of the 1990s?

This week the Romney campaign was knocked on its heels by a study which suggested that Romney’s tax plan would — in addition to giving a windfall to the wealthiest Americans — increase taxes on 95% of Americans. So the guy who’s running for President to turn back President Obama’s supposedly high-taxing and deficit creating ways would actually raise taxes on virtually everyone and also explode the deficit.

But, wait, there’s more!

<...>

Who’s Kevin Hassett? Well, he’s none other than the coauthor of the spectacularly boomtime late 90s bestseller Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market. As TPM Reader WM points out, not only was the book amazingly wrong and basically assumed the tech boom was permanent, the whole concept was based on the idea that stocks should be valued on a “formula that double-counted earnings and dividends. A true classic in wingnut economics.”

Now, just to clarify: Dow 36,000.

- more -

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/08/inside_the_romney_boom_36000.php

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4 replies	Author	Time	Post
FLASHBACK: Romney Economic Advisers Predicted Bush Tax Cuts Would Lead To Huge Job Growth (updated) (Original post)	ProSense	Aug 2012	OP
And those Bush job numbers only go through 2007 - before the crash	progree	Aug 2012	#1
Can You Imagine An Attack Ad With This As A Topic	Vogon_Glory	Aug 2012	#2
Romney Stands By Claim That He’ll Create 12 Million Jobs In 4 Years	ProSense	Aug 2012	#3
Lets see, Massachusetts with Romney as governor was 47th out of 50th in job creation. n/t	progree	Aug 2012	#4

Response to ProSense (Original post)

Sat Aug 4, 2012, 11:49 AM

progree (841 posts)

1. And those Bush job numbers only go through 2007 - before the crash

When the glorious GW Bush era ended, his 8-year record was: created 1.1 million payroll jobs - by creating 1.8 million government jobs and destroying 0.7 million private sector jobs. ( the actual numbers are, in thousands: 1,080, 1,753, 673 ). Yes, it is ironic that a supposed "small government conservative" ended up creating government jobs and destroying private sector jobs. So I'd say Hubbard was a bit off for sure in his predictions. If anything, the Bush tax cuts (most of which went to the wealthy) fueled an asset bubble (housing of course, but also a stock market that reached all-time record highs in October 2007, only to drop by nearly half before he left office)

Obviously that was not enough to keep up with population growth, so the unemployment rate under Bush rose from 4.2% to 7.7%

Contrast that with the Clinton economy -- it created 22.7 million payroll jobs of which 20.8 million were in the private sector.

Or the Obama economy since the recession ended in June 2009 -- a mere 5 months after he took office -- created 2.7 million payroll jobs (by adding 3.4 million private sector jobs and losing 0.7 million government jobs). (The National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER.org, the official arbiter of recession and expansion turning points, determined the 2nd Bush recession ended some time in June 2009).

In the last 29 months (since February 2010) the Obama economy created 4.0 million payroll jobs (by adding 4.5 million private sector jobs and losing 0.5 million government jobs)

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Response to ProSense (Original post)

Sat Aug 4, 2012, 12:10 PM

Vogon_Glory (3,861 posts)

2. Can You Imagine An Attack Ad With This As A Topic

Cue the "Back to the Future" theme music.

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Response to ProSense (Original post)

Sun Aug 5, 2012, 12:14 PM

ProSense (98,092 posts)

3. Romney Stands By Claim That He’ll Create 12 Million Jobs In 4 Years

Romney Stands By Claim That He’ll Create 12 Million Jobs In 4 Years

In an interview with CNN that aired Sunday, Mitt Romney defended his claim that he would create 12 million jobs in 4 years if elected president.

“That’s what happens in a normal process – when you come out of a kind of recession we’ve had, you should see this kind of job creation,” he said on “State of the Union.” “We should be seeing 2-3-400,000 jobs per month to regain much of what’s been lost. That’s what normally happens after a recession. But under this president, we have not seen that kind of pattern.”

He claimed President Obama wants to give more money to government.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/romney-stands-by-claim-that-hell-create-12

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Response to ProSense (Reply #3)

Sun Aug 5, 2012, 12:43 PM

progree (841 posts)

4. Lets see, Massachusetts with Romney as governor was 47th out of 50th in job creation. n/t

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