The Bush Economy:  Archive Page 3

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The Comptroller General of the U.S. Speaks Out

Our nation's long-term fiscal outlook is seriously out of balance due primarily to known demographic and health care costs. At the same time, there are a variety of government policies, programs and operations now in place and others that are being considered that serve to build in costs for the future. Unfortunately, these costs are often not adequately recognized and properly considered when key decisions are made.

While additional economic growth can help, our long-range fiscal gap is too great to simply grow our way out of this major challenge. Hence, the American people need to be engaged in a discussion about what they want government to do and how much they are willing to pay for it. 

David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States and head of the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), 9/4/03

 

I'ld Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover George W.

The 2.7 million jobs lost in the private sector in less than three years is one of the worst slides in decades. "There are better days ahead," Mr. Bush told union workers on Labor Day, in a choice of language that eerily echoes Herbert Hoover. The nation should not forget the president's earlier insistent prescription: in selling his tax cuts in the Republican Congress, Mr. Bush proclaimed them as just the economic "jobs and growth" package workers needed. But the unemployment problem remains rock-hard in resisting the administration's trickle-down fantasy that cuts for the affluent will generate new jobs for the working class. NY Times Editorial, 9/3/3

 

Bush Friends $8,900,000,000,
California $1,000,000 *


the California Independent System Operator — which operates the power grid — estimated that withholding by electricity companies had cost the state $8.9 billion [not including] the continuing cost of long-term contracts. . . Yet the charges energy companies agreed to added up to only a bit more than $1 million. That is, the average Californian was bilked of more than $250, but the state will receive compensation of about 3 cents.  Was the fix in? . . .FERC clearly does have the power to abrogate long-term contracts signed during the crisis. But in June, on a 2-to-1 vote (yes, two Republicans against one Democrat), the commission upheld those contracts. So California, the victim of one of the worst abuses of market power since the robber baron era, will get no redress. Paul Krugman, NY Times 9/2/03

 

Desperate Workers *

Today white-collar jobs -- telemarketing, accounting, claims adjusting, home loan processing, architectural practices, radiographers and even some state and local government jobs -- are going offshore. In a survey of the world's 100 largest financial services firms, Deloitte Research found that these companies expect to shift $356 billion worth of operations and about 2 million jobs to low-wage countries over the next five years. These developments appear already to be affecting wages in some sectors. According to Sharon Marsh Roberts of the Independent Computer Consultants Association, outsourcing has forced down hourly wage rates by 10 percent to 40 percent for many U.S. computer consultants. Bruce Raynor, Washington Post 9/1/03

 

Bush Loses 2.7 M Industrial Jobs *

The economy is getting better, so the experts say. But this is anything but a joyful Labor Day for the 9 million Americans without jobs or for the businesses that once employed many of them. As the union-backed Economic Policy Institute pointed out in a report last week, "in terms of employment growth, the current recovery is the worst on record since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking employment in 1939."

Instead of the job picture improving as economic activity has accelerated, more than 1 million jobs have disappeared since the recession officially ended. . . .From July 2000 until last month, industrial jobs fell from 17.3 million to 14.6 million -- a loss of almost one job in six. And these were, for the most part, good jobs, averaging $54,000 a year.  David Broder, Washington Post 8/31/03

 

Deception by Bush Protégée

California's taxes are highly inequitable: thanks to Proposition 13, some people pay ridiculously low property taxes. Warren Buffett, supposedly acting as Mr. Schwarzenegger's economic adviser, offered the perfect example: he pays $14,401 in property taxes on his $500,000 home in Omaha, but only $2,264 on his $4 million home in Orange County. But the candidate quickly made it clear that Mr. Buffett should stick to the script and not mention inconvenient facts. . .the candidate says he won't touch education. Sharp cuts in medical spending would be not only cruel but foolish, since in many cases they would mean losing federal matching funds. And prison spending is largely determined by the state's "three strikes" law. In short, he's not leveling with voters: there's no way to balance the budget while honoring all his promises. Krugman, NY Times 8/22/03

 

Bushconomics

Mr. Akerlof, a 2001 Nobel laureate in economics, bluntly declared on Tuesday that "the Bush fiscal policy is the worst policy in the last 200 years. . . .Within 10 years, we're going to pay a serious price for such irresponsibility."

. . .Robert Solow, an economist and professor emeritus at M.I.T. who is also a Nobel laureate. He assailed the Bush tax cuts as "redistributive in intent and redistributive in effect.. . .

""Homelessness in major cities is escalating," the article said, "as more laid-off workers already living paycheck to paycheck wind up on the streets or in shelters."

"The federal tax cut, which slashed the tax rate on dividends and prompted many companies to increase their payouts, is proving to be a boon for some corporate executives who are reaping millions in after-tax gains."  BOB HERBERT, NY Times 8/14/03

 

Support for Corporate Friends, Not Our Troops

Military privatization, like military penny-pinching, is part of a pattern. Both for ideological reasons and, one suspects, because of the patronage involved, the people now running the country seem determined to have public services provided by private corporations, no matter what the circumstances. For example, you may recall that in the weeks after 9/11 the Bush administration [fought]to leave airport screening in the hands of private security companies, . . . The Baltimore Sun, "the Bush administration continues to use American corporations to perform work that United Nations agencies and nonprofit aid groups can do more cheaply."  In short, the logistical mess in Iraq isn't an isolated case of poor planning and mismanagement: it's telling us what's wrong with our current philosophy of government.  PAUL KRUGMAN, NY Times, 8/12/03

 

Bush Push for Fewer U.S. Jobs

. . .the interests of the Bush admin-istration's primary constituency, corporate America, do not coincide with the fundamental interests of workaday Americans. On the business side of this divide, increased profits are realized by showing the door to as many workers as possible, and squeezing the remainder to the bursting point. Productivity (based primarily on improvements in technology) is way up. Hiring, of course, is down. Part-time and temporary workers are in; full-time workers with benefits are out.  And then there's the ominous trend of sending higher-skilled jobs overseas to low-wage places like India and China, an upscale reprise of the sweatshop phenomenon that erased so many U.S. manufacturing jobs over the past quarter century  Herbert, NY Times 8/7/03

Graph of Bush Jobs Record

 

Corporatism by Another Name:

I keep thinking of Mussolini's definition of fascism: "Fascism should more properly be called ‘corporatism,' since it is the marriage of government and corporate power." When was the last time we saw this administration do something that involved standing up to some corporate special interest in favor of the great majority of the people?  Molly Ivans, Washington Post, Working for Change 8/8/03

 

Even the IMF Speaks Out on Bush Budget

The swelling budget deficit, projected by the White House to reach a record $455 billion this fiscal year, ``will make it even more difficult to cope with the aging of the baby-boom generation, and will eventually crowd out investment and erode U.S. productivity growth,'' the [International Monetary Fund] IMF said.

The IMF's board of directors, which issued the report, urged the U.S. to return to a balanced budget within five to 10 years and take steps to strengthen Social Security and Medicare. Any measures to increase Medicare benefits should consider the impact on the system's ``longer-term financial problems.''  Bloomberg, 8/5/03

 

Defense Budget or Pocket Stuffer?

 the combined defense budgets of the . . .axis of evil made up of Iran, Iraq, and N. Korea – are less than $12 billion, or only about three per cent of the US proposed defense budget for 2003. Chuck Spiney, THE Subcommittee on National Security, 6/4/02

 

 

Irresponsible Leadership:  Outside the Social Security system, the federal government is now running a deficit equal to a third of its spending — worse than California. The administration says it will never, ever contemplate increasing taxes; it says it will narrow the deficit through spending restraint, but has never said what spending it intends to restrain. . . . But the people now running the country are every bit as irresponsible as those blocking a serious response to California's crisis. And sooner or later that irresponsibility will have the usual consequences. California, here we come  Krugman, NY Times 8/1/03

Entitlements: The Needy vs. The Corporations--he asserted purpose of the recent corporate “stimulus” bills seems sadly misdirected. For the past few years, our economy has faced serious excess capacity: businesses can make more products than consumers want to buy. Oddly, Congress and President Bush concluded that rather than trying to boost demand, the answer to the over-capacity problem was to try to encourage even more over-capacity. Not surprisingly, this nonsensical strategy hasn’t worked.   Testimony of Robert S. McIntyre, Director, Citizens for Tax Justice Before the Committee on the Budget

 

Cost of the War in Iraq as of 9 p.m. eastern time 7/25/03:

$70.3 Billion

Instead of using it on a non-existent "immanent threat" to the U.S., it could have paid for:

See an update of these figures at  www.costofwar.com

 

 

Another Bush Quote:  There's another sentence in George Bush's State of the Union address that wasn't true: "We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents and other generations." . . .Of the 2.6 million jobs the economy has lost under the Bush administration, 2 million have been lost since the 2001 tax cut.. . .Right now the U.S. government is running deficits bigger, as a share of G.D.P., than those that plunged Argentina into crisis  Krugman , NY Times 7/18/03

 

No More Overtime Pay for Millions:  new rules would let employers stop paying overtime to workers including licensed practical nurses, paralegals, chefs, editors and dental hygienists — though it would not affect those covered by union contracts.  ASSOCIATED PRESS on MSNBC 7/11/03
 

Compassionate Conservatism: As Mr. Bush moves from fund-raiser to fund-raiser, building the mother of all campaign stockpiles, states from coast to coast are reaching depths of budget desperation unseen since the Great Depression. The disconnect here is becoming surreal. On Thursday the National Governors Association let it be known that the fiscal crisis that has crippled one state after another is worsening, not getting better.  . . . Some Americans are missing meals and going without their medicine, while others are enjoying a surge in already breathtaking levels of wealth. So what are we doing? We're cutting aid to the former while showering government largess on the latter.  Herbert, NY Times 6/30/03

 

Clever Investment:  FCC Chairman Michael Powell runs . . . the Telecommunications Development Fund was created by Congress in 1996 to kick-start small communications firms in hopes of spurring innovation and competition. Instead, the six-year-old fund has paid more than $7 million in executive salaries and other expenses while investing only $9.4 million of seed money in start-ups.

Bob Williams, Center for Public Integrity 6/18/03

 

The Bush Machine:  Mr. Confessore suggests that we may be heading for a replay of the McKinley era, in which the nation was governed by and for big business. I think he's actually understating his case: like Mr. DeLay, Republican leaders often talk of "revolution," and we should take them at their word. . . .But it's the nexus of money and patronage that may well make the election a foregone conclusion.   Krugman, NY Times 6/27-03

 

“The President has given numerous speeches implying that most people stand to gain $1,000 or more from his latest tax bill, but that’s not true,” said Robert S. McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice. “In fact, over the next two years, the median tax reduction will be only about $120. After 2004, the median tax cut drops to zero.”   Citizens for Tax Justice 5/30/2003

 

"Citing data from a study by Citizens for Tax Justice, Mr. Rosenbaum pointed out that the richest 1 percent of Americans will get an average tax reduction of nearly $100,000 a year, while "the tax relief most people will receive is quite meager."  Half of all taxpayers will get a cut of less than $100 this year. By 2005, three-quarters will get less than $100."  Herbert, NY Times 6/23/03

 

"the banana-republic policies now being followed in Washington won't just drive up interest rates; they'll probably generate a full-blown fiscal crisis one of these years. That can't be good for equity prices.  In short, the current surge in stocks looks like another bubble, one that will eventually" burst.  Krugman, NY Times, 6/20/03

 

"The ranking Democrat announced that he would introduce an amendment adding roughly $1 billion for areas like port security and border security that, according to just about every expert, have been severely neglected since Sept. 11. He proposed to pay for the additions by slightly scaling back tax cuts for people making more than $1 million per year.

The subcommittee's chairman promptly closed the meeting to the public, citing national security — though no classified material was under discussion. And the bill that emerged from the closed meeting did not contain the extra funding."  MORE Krugman, NY Times 6/17/03

"The Bush cuts offer too little short-term stimulus while choking the long-term revenue flow for the looming time when Social Security and Medicare costs will balloon. Mr. Bush's growing need to float the federal government on borrowed money will crimp economic growth. This is the stuff of real debate. Instead we have the G.O.P. worrying a modest share for the poor. The outcome promises to position the president as a compassionate "moderate" in a cynical bit of right-wing theater produced by the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, the president's indispensable ally in budget politicking."  NY Times Editorial 6/15/03

The latest budget projections from the Congressional Budget Office indicate that one out of every three dollars the federal government spends this year outside of the self-funded Social Security system will be paid for by borrowing. This will be the highest share of deficit-financed spending since World War II.  Citizen's for Tax Justice, 6/11/03

"Whenever Mr. Bush says, "It's not the government's money, it's your money," Democrats should point out that what he is really saying is, "It's not the government's services, it's your services" — and thanks to the Bush tax cuts, soon you'll be paying for many of them yourself. . .that will mean less health care and kindergarten for children and the poor, higher state college tuition, smaller local school budgets and fewer state service workers. And Lord only knows how we'll finance Social Security."

MORE  Friedman, NY Times, 6/11/02

 

 

 "Governor Riley (R. Al.) has stunned many of his conservative supporters, and enraged the state's powerful farm and timber lobbies, by pushing a tax reform plan through the Alabama Legislature that shifts a significant amount of the state's tax burden from the poor to wealthy individuals and corporations. And he has framed the issue in starkly moral terms, arguing that the current Alabama tax system violates biblical teachings because Christians are prohibited from oppressing the poor." Adam Cohen, NY Times MORE

 

"We will be paying for his tax cuts with borrowed funds, money borrowed from our children and grandchildren who will be forced to foot the bill. And, according to reports, the Bush administration intends to ask for more tax cuts next year. The effect of these tax cuts will be enduring -- and enormously damaging"  Sen. Jim Jeffords  at the National Press Club on June 5,

 

"federal taxes are now back to what they were in an era when Medicare and Medicaid didn't exist, and Social Security was still a minor expense. How can we maintain these programs, which have become essential to scores of millions of Americans, at today's tax rates? We can't."  Krugman, NY Times 6/6/03

 

"Three successive tax cuts pushed by President Bush will leave middle-income taxpayers paying a greater share of all federal taxes by the end of the decade, according to new analyses of the Bush administration's tax policies."  Dana Milbank and Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post 6/4/03

"nobody trying to jumpstart the economy would begin with dividend taxes. . . . Mr Bush looks set to go into the next election having overseen at least 1m net job losses."  The Economist, May 29th 2003 

 

"The tax cut plan . . . offers the wealthiest one percent of Americans a $103,899 tax reduction over the next four years. At the same time, the final bill sharply scales back the already modest middle-income tax cuts included in earlier bills, by phasing out those provisions after two years.  Citizens for Tax Justice 5/23/03

"there are 40 times as many taxpayers who get no benefit from the cuts as there are millionaires who will get 44 percent of the law's tax benefits in 2005." DAVID FIRESTONE, NY Times 6/1/03

 

In the end, people earning over $1 million will bring home an average of $93,000 extra this year while a single mother of 2 struggling to make ends meet on $18,000/year will get no help.  Ben Cohen, True Majority.org
 

"the tax cut could save Dick Cheney $100,000 a year"
Herbert NY Times

 "But the people now running America aren't conservatives: they're radicals who want to do away with the social and economic system we have, and the fiscal crisis they are concocting may give them the excuse they need. The Financial Times, it seems, now understands what's going on, but when will the public wake up?"  PAUL KRUGMAN, NY Times

Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in America speaks out in Wash Post:
"The taxes I pay to the federal government, including the payroll tax that is paid for me by my employer, Berkshire Hathaway, are roughly the same proportion of my income -- about 30 percent -- as that paid by the receptionist in our office.  . .Owning 31 percent of Berkshire [if a dividend is declared], I would receive $310  million in additional income, owe not another dime in federal tax, and see my tax rate plunge to 3 percent."  READ MORE

 

Tom the Dancing Bug: Economy in Recovery (comic)

 

The Bush administration's pursuit of its reckless fiscal policy . . .[has] undermined America's ability to lead on global economic matters NY Times Editorial

 

"The Republicans Party On" and Bush approves "drop in the top rate, to 35 percent from 38.6 percent — a windfall of scores of thousands of dollars annually for wealthy Americans."  NY Times Editorial 5/22/03

 

Dr. W's Incredible Amazing Cure-All Martin Washington Post

 

Mr. Bush is running the federal government: recklessly spending money it doesn't have and piling up debt it can't afford even as it knows the really big bills are about to come due. Washington Post Editorial

 

 

    "What Jobs? What Growth?"    Washington Post Editorial“

 

"And so it goes. Tax subsidies for health insurance, housing, retirement and most other things tend to benefit most those who need the subsidies least, and to benefit least those who need the subsidies most, while the subsidies themselves drive up prices."  Fox, Washington Post

 

America’s interests are in conflict with the rest of the world. Watch for further falls in the dollar, followed by new calls for protection and trade friction. And wear a seat belt.”  London Money Manager quoted by Miller in NewsweekI

 

n George Bush's America, jobs get erased like chalk marks on a blackboard. More than 2 million have vanished on Mr. Bush's watch. There are now more than 10.2 million unemployed workers in the U.S., including 1.4 million who are not officially counted because they've become discouraged and stopped looking. Herbert, NY Times

 

Bush has said that his plan is a, "jobs growth package." But the only thing guaranteed to grow is the federal budget deficit, something Republicans used to care about, and I still do. We will be paying for these tax cuts with borrowed funds, money borrowed from our children and grandchildren who will be forced to foot the bill. And these deficits will explode just as the baby boom generation begins to retire, further endangering the health of Social Security and Medicare, both of which are so critically important to our seniors." Senator Jeffords (Ind. Vermont)

 

". . .economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and Boston University respectively -- "The [2001] Bush tax cut," they argue, "worsened the generational imbalance . . . by about one-fifth at a time when it was already huge." Further tax cuts this year would do more of the same."  Rauch, Washington Post

 

Tax Cut?

'states are "withdrawing health care for the poor and mentally ill. They are also dismissing state troopers, closing parks and schools, dropping bus routes, eliminating college scholarships and slashing a host of other services." Not to mention unscrewing every third light bulb in Missouri government offices. (Honest.)'  Krugman, NY Times

 

Bush's Economic Confusion

"The Bush administration is, of course, notably unconcerned about deficits. Aren't the tax cuts in the pipeline exactly what the economy needs? Alas, no. Despite their huge size — if you ignore the gimmicks, the latest round will cost at least $800 billion over the next decade — they pump relatively little money into the economy now, when it needs it. Moreover, the tax cuts flow mainly to the very, very affluent — the people least likely to spend their windfall.

Meanwhile, state and local governments, which are not allowed to run deficits — we have our own version of the stability pact — are slashing spending and raising taxes. And both the spending cuts and the tax increases will fall mainly on the most vulnerable, people who cannot make up the difference by drawing on existing savings. The result is that the economic downdraft from state cutbacks (only slightly alleviated by the paltry aid contained in the new tax bill) will almost certainly be stronger than any boost from federal tax cuts."  MORE   Krugman, NY Times

The Bush Economy:  Archive Page 3

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