CHAPTER 2: BUSHCAPADES: IS THE U.S. IN A RECESSION?

摘要

President George W. Bush's honeymoon is to be nice, nice. Now, it's not polite to attack the President, or politic. He is talking moderate, and governing right wing. He is dominating the daily national news in the media fishbowl, and he is enjoying it so far. He has the power, and he is exercising authority more effectively than his detractors expected. Underestimated again. Bush has made implementing the tax cut his top priority. Cutting the budget, while enhancing military and education spending is the rest of the focus for his efforts with the Congress. Of course, all of this assumes that the economy continues to generate so much federal tax revenue that he can keep his commitment to pay down the national debt while underwriting Social Security and Medicare. Bush wants to re-create the United States of 1955, when we were still a God-fearing country that respected family values, authority, and reaping the benefits of the American Dream in the private sector through hard work. While Bush has been very cautious about using the word "recession" himself, his Vice President, Dick Cheney, is who introduced the concept into the public mindset on a Sunday tv talk show on December 3rd. By painting a picture of how bad it was before they came into office, the new GOP administration hoped to pin the blame for the emerging economic troubles on Clinton. Wait a minute. When Bush Senior left office, unemployment was over 7 percent, 3 percent worse than now. Clinton came to office and said "It's the economy, stupid." Bush Junior comes into office complaining that after the unprecedented almost eight years of prosperity, the economy may be in some trouble. His father called it "voodoo economics", but this President Bush is so devoted to Reagan philosophically that he is limiting himself to promoting a bigger tax cut and hoping the Fed continues to cut the prime lending rate until it does some good. He even uses bad news to argue his case for a monstrous tax cut. His greatest hope is that the tax cut package will have enough of an impact to build both consumer and producer confidence and restimulate the economy to the sustained growth levels of most of Clinton's two terms.