Closing the Books on the Bush* Legacy

[Zomby Woof]

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/09/closing_the_boo...

Closing The Book On The Bush Legacy

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 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.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. You think? but the record ain't closed

not until they stand before the court... for their crimes... and truthfully I don't expect that to happen... but the fight ain't over...

[TxRider]

7. The record won't be closed for another 20 years at least.

[Zomby Woof]

2. Kick for the daytime crowd

[Capn Sunshine]

3. really no surprise, is it.

by March 2001 you could just feel the current reverse itself as the demons spilled from Pandora's Box.

[Zomby Woof]

4. It echoes the question I have been asking for years

"If tax cuts are always automatically good for the economy, then why didn't it grow under Bush?"

Usually a rhetorical question, but we have a few young, willfully ignorant wingnut relatives whose heads would probably explode if I asked them that.

[Capn Sunshine]

5. seems like a legit question to me

IMO, its should be the foundation lecture series question in all college economics courses.
I may run with this.

[Zomby Woof]

6. One of the key reasons

The first time in American history that tax cuts coincided with not just one war, but TWO. It was akin to Reagan's Cold War tax cuts/increased defense spending, times 1,000 or more. It seems that after all the clamoring the Republicans made about "who is the next Reagan?", it turns out he was right under their noses, as the son of his VP. Bush didn't even need Reagan's teleprompter skills - but that's another topic altogether. They both certainly benefited from a compliant press to sell their brand of snake oil.