It’s been a Republican article of faith that George W. Bush inherited an economy that was already headed into the toilet under Bill Clinton. The Prevaricator-in-Chief parroted the same mantra during last night’s debate. The fact that this assertion is patently false seems not to concern Bush a whit. Then again, speaking the truth has never been his strong point- particularly when it comes to the economy, where Our Smirking President has done a masterful job of running Bill Clinton’s economic successes right into the ground. Nice job, eh??
The ad by the pro-Bush group Progress for America Voter Fund claims the economy was already in a recession when Bush took office, but the National Bureau of Economic Research (which dates business cycles) says the recession actually began in March 2001, after Bush took office in January.
The facts also get stretched when the ad claims “41 million seniors now have access to lower cost prescriptions (emphasis added).” Bush’s new prescription drug benefit will cover seniors on Medicare for an extra premium of about $35 a month, but not until 2006. Even the currently available drug discount cards have been used much less than expected. Current enrollment is less than 5 million….
It’s not quite true, as the ad claims, that Bush inherited “an economy already in recession (emphasis added).” It would have been accurate to say Bush inherited “an economy on the verge of recession.”
The National Bureau of Economic Research, a non-partisan group of mostly academic economists, set the start date of the recession as March 2001, weeks after Bush took office on Jan 20. The NBER defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.”
To be sure, the rate of economic growth had slowed significantly at the time Bush took office, as the longest boom in US history drew to a close.
Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of economics and business cycles can grasp the concept that all good things eventually comes to an end. Macroeconomically speaking, business cycles are a series of peaks and valleys. Strictly speaking, if you never have a recession, how can you know when you’ve had an expansion?
The fact that Bill Clinton’s policies laid the ground work for the largest peacetime economic expansion should hardly be a matter of dispute. Eventually, though, the party had to end. Such is the nature of macroeconomic cycles. Yes, the cycle was slowing near the time Bush assumed office. Since then, however, George W. Bush has presided over the largest overall loss of jobs in American history. Not exactly the stuff of John Maynard Keynes, eh? Especially when you consider that Bush has completely decimated the balanced budget that Bill Clinton left us with. And who do you think will be paying the bills? Yep, that’s right; our children. Now can you understand why four more years of George W. Bush would be such a horrible, tragic mistake?
It’s easy to toss around numbers. Do it often enough and they become meaningless. Ronald Reagan used to pose a simple but effective question to voters: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Am I the only one who’s noticed that a President who styles himself as the political love child of Ronald Reagan has never asked this question of us? Of course he hasn’t, because he knows the answer would not be at all favorable to him.
Of course, all of us ultimately evaluate the state of the economy based on the state of our own wallet. It’s a much simpler proposition than thinking in broader, macroeconomic terms. Let me make it simple for you. Have you:
Bought gasoline lately?
Tried to find a job?
Paid attention to how many jobs are leaving the US and landing overseas?
Noticed that you’re working harder and spending more time at work, but have little, if anything, more to show for it?
If you listen to some of the pro-Bush advocacy group ads, you’d think it was the economic equivalent of “Morning in America” and that George W. Bush is leading us to “The Shining City on the Hill”. How about y’all remove your anteriors from your posteriors and WAKE UP AND SMELL THE CAT LITTER.
I don’t know how President Lowest Common Denominator did in his Economics classes at Yale (assuming he actually took any), but he certainly isn’t overwhelming anyone with his grasp of basic economics. Of course, if you listen to his handlers/apologists, George W. Bush is the only thing standing between us and complete, utter chaos…never mind the fact that this chaos is largely of his own creation.
