Remember the centerpiece of Clinton's economic plan? It was his deficit reduction program. Well, it was an incredible success as the graph above shows. Republicans of course screamed at the time that his taxes were going to destroy the U.S. economy. Did it happen? Nope.
Nevertheless, the first thing that Bush did in 2000 was to cut taxes to improve the economy. What happened? We started to slide into a recession. Then Bush wanted to cut taxes to prevent a recession. What happened? We entered a recession. Then he wanted to cut taxes to bring us out of a recession. What happened? The recession got worse.
When is the U.S. media going to stop their knee jerk assumption that cutting taxes is good for the economy, and increasing them is bad? Wasn't the postwar period, when the marginal top rate was the highest in history, a period of tremendous economic growth?
When you have a deficit as high as we do know, the dollar is threatened. It has tumbled recently. If it continues to tumble, our economic woes could make the last couple years look like a walk in the park.
Scott McClellan says that Bush is going to attack the deficit by "promoting economic growth." Presumably that means by cutting taxes.
Sure. That'll help a lot.
Meantime, the U.N. is observing that the twin U.S. deficits (in trade and budget) are "throwing the global economy off balance," and is frantic to find a way to solve the problem.
Here's a good first step: bring our military home from Iraq.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...get_deficit_dc
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/01/...ess/trade.html