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(1) The stock market is not always a good indicator of the overall health of the economy.
(2) It's not fair to saddle Bush with all of the blame for the economy of the past few years.
That being said, the objection many have to Bush's policy is the over-reliance on deficit spending to finance his foreign adventures, tax cuts, and the like. We could add trillions to an already monumental national debt before balance is restored, if current trends continue. And Bush, instead of recognizing this, plows ahead with his agenda.
And it's not just GOP friendly tax policy Bush is pimping. According to the Cato Institute (Libertarian think tank), Bush has been steadily raising discretionary non-defense spending at a rate many times that of the Clinton admin. (The study covered the first two and a half years, so don't start about congress muzzling Clinton).
On a related note, things like Bush's steel tarriff just piss me off - so nakedly political, and they end up doing more harm than good.
If Bush was serious about stimulating growth he would have targeted his tax cuts on the middle class (instead of focusing on capital gains and the like). Perhaps he could have implemented an (admittedly liberal) homeland security jobs program (a la improving the infrastructure of our borders and ports and the like).
I don't dispute that tax cuts for the upper class stimulate the economy, but the problem some don't realize is that those wealthy enough to benefit signifigantly from Bush's cuts would be much more likely to either (a) save the money instead of spending it or (b) invest the money in a foreign enterprise.
Even if we return to surplus, I still say it would irresponsible to massively cut taxes for anyone until we begin to make sizable strides in paying off our national debt (much of which is financed by foreign creditors such as communist China).
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The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.
-- Albert Schweitzer
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