Reply #5: But, but, but the Wall St. Journals says everything is great

[hadrons]

The Tax Cut Record
Americans are better off despite Democratic naysaying.

Sunday, May 14, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Our late editor Bob Bartley used to say that critics might forgive you for being wrong, but they'll never forgive you for being right. That psychological insight may be the only way to explain the fierce and bitter opposition this week to extending the tax cuts of 2003 for another two years through 2010.

If ever there was a market test of economic policy, the last three years have been it. The stock market has recovered from its implosion in Bill Clinton's last year in office, unemployment is down to 4.7%, and growth has averaged 3.9% in the three years since those tax cuts passed--well above the post-World War II average and more than twice the growth rate in Euroland.

Yes, gas prices are high and interest rates are rising, which helps to explain the anxiety felt by some of the public. But these headwinds are all the more reason to be impressed by the economy's ability to push ahead nonetheless. We'd have thought that the Democrats who are now voting to let taxes increase would be thrilled to know that things turned out better than they had feared. Americans are better off despite Democratic predictions that, as Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi put it back in 2003, tax cuts would "damage long-term economic growth."

Alas, admitting error is not a natural political act, so the tax cut critics are now suggesting all of this growth would have happened anyway. Thus the Washington Post last week quoted Robert Rubin--the Clinton economic guru--as dismissing the importance of tax cuts because "we had very good markets in the '90s before all these tax cuts went into effect." And it quoted chief Lehman Brothers economist Ethan Harris as saying that the expansion "has nothing to do with tax policy, and more to do with the corporate sector starting to spend some of their record profits."

Well, what does Mr. Harris think inspired that revival of business spending? Spontaneous combustion? A Nascar green flag? As for Mr. Rubin, when does he think the stock market imploded and the economy headed downhill? Bill Clinton was still in office when the dot-com boom went bust and U.S. manufacturing was shedding jobs faster than France.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008374

so is it Clinton's penis again?