The economy continues to spiral downward.
Two million American have lost their jobs since the beginning of the year. One out of ten borrowers is facing foreclosure. The automobile industry with its 3 million direct and indirect jobs is on the verge of collapse. And the President of the United States is AWOL.
In 2006 the noted Princeton historian Sean Wilentz wrote an article about President Geoarge W. Bush entitled "The Worst President in History?"
He concludes the essay:
The president came to office calling himself "a uniter, not a divider" and promising to soften the acrimonious tone in Washington. He has had two enormous opportunities to fulfill those pledges: first, in the noisy aftermath of his controversial election in 2000, and, even more, after the attacks of September 11th, when the nation pulled behind him as it has supported no other president in living memory. Yet under both sets of historically unprecedented circumstances, Bush has chosen to act in ways that have left the country less united and more divided, less conciliatory and more acrimonious - much like James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson and Herbert Hoover before him. And, like those three predecessors, Bush has done so in the service of a rigid ideology that permits no deviation and refuses to adjust to changing realities. Buchanan failed the test of Southern secession, Johnson failed in the face of Reconstruction, and Hoover failed in the face of the Great Depression. Bush has failed to confront his own failures in both domestic and international affairs, above all in his ill-conceived responses to radical Islamic terrorism. Having confused steely resolve with what Ralph Waldo Emerson called "a foolish consistency . . . adored by little statesmen," Bush has become entangled in tragedies of his own making, compounding those visited upon the country by outside forces.
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert echoes this theme today when he writes:
This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool’s gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job...
The president would give the wealthy and the powerful virtually everything they wanted. He would throw sand into the regulatory apparatus and help foster the most extreme income disparities since the years leading up to the Great Depression. Once again he was lighting a fire. This time the flames would engulf the economy and, as with Iraq, bring catastrophe...
The catalog of his transgressions against the nation’s interests — sins of commission and omission — would keep Mr. Bush in a confessional for the rest of his life. Don’t hold your breath. He’s hardly the contrite sort.
The entire article is linked.
Both writers point out that President Bush refuses to be held accountable for the damage he has done to the country.
Herbert writes:
"He told ABC’s Charlie Gibson: “I don’t spend a lot of time really worrying about short-term history. I guess I don’t worry about long-term history, either, since I’m not going to be around to read it.”
The president chuckled, thinking — as he did when he made his jokes about the missing weapons of mass destruction — that there was something funny going on.
This is from the leader of a Party that argues that personal responsibility is the key to solving the nation's myriad problems and that individuals have to be held accountable for their actions. The President's hypocrisy is matched only by his mendacity.
Showing posts with label president Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label president Bush. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Offshore drilling: "a massive, fraudulent, pathetic excuse for an energy policy"
Soaring crude oil and energy prices are crippling the economy, driving up food, transportation and production costs, and eroding our standard of living.
Thomas Friedman writes that President Bush's proposal to address soaring gasoline and energy prices through offshore drilling, which has been adopted hook, line, and sinker by Republican Presidential nominee John McCain, is "...a massive, fraudulent, pathetic excuse for an energy policy...."
His Sunday column begins:
Two years ago, President Bush declared that America was “addicted to oil,” and, by gosh, he was going to do something about it. Well, now he has. Now we have the new Bush energy plan: “Get more addicted to oil.”
Actually, it’s more sophisticated than that: Get Saudi Arabia, our chief oil pusher, to up our dosage for a little while and bring down the oil price just enough so the renewable energy alternatives can’t totally take off. Then try to strong arm Congress into lifting the ban on drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
It’s as if our addict-in-chief is saying to us: “C’mon guys, you know you want a little more of the good stuff. One more hit, baby. Just one more toke on the ole oil pipe. I promise, next year, we’ll all go straight. I’ll even put a wind turbine on my presidential library. But for now, give me one more pop from that drill, please, baby. Just one more transfusion of that sweet offshore crude.”
It is hard for me to find the words to express what a massive, fraudulent, pathetic excuse for an energy policy this is. But it gets better.
Friedman's entire column is linked.
Thomas Friedman writes that President Bush's proposal to address soaring gasoline and energy prices through offshore drilling, which has been adopted hook, line, and sinker by Republican Presidential nominee John McCain, is "...a massive, fraudulent, pathetic excuse for an energy policy...."
His Sunday column begins:
Two years ago, President Bush declared that America was “addicted to oil,” and, by gosh, he was going to do something about it. Well, now he has. Now we have the new Bush energy plan: “Get more addicted to oil.”
Actually, it’s more sophisticated than that: Get Saudi Arabia, our chief oil pusher, to up our dosage for a little while and bring down the oil price just enough so the renewable energy alternatives can’t totally take off. Then try to strong arm Congress into lifting the ban on drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
It’s as if our addict-in-chief is saying to us: “C’mon guys, you know you want a little more of the good stuff. One more hit, baby. Just one more toke on the ole oil pipe. I promise, next year, we’ll all go straight. I’ll even put a wind turbine on my presidential library. But for now, give me one more pop from that drill, please, baby. Just one more transfusion of that sweet offshore crude.”
It is hard for me to find the words to express what a massive, fraudulent, pathetic excuse for an energy policy this is. But it gets better.
Friedman's entire column is linked.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
Extend Unemployment Benefits
The nation lost an additional 20,000 thousand jobs in April.
Most industries shed jobs last month, as has been the case since last November..
Notably, construction losses have spread from residential housing—reflecting the deep weakness in that sector—to non-residential building, which is also now on a consistent downtrend. Since the peak in construction employment in September 2006, the sector has shed almost 460,000 jobs.
Factory employment continues to slide, despite the export-boosting effect of the weaker dollar. In fact, the decline of 43,000 jobs in durable manufacturing (heavy industry) last month was the largest monthly loss since July 2003.
Almost 3 million unemployed workers have exhausted their benefits.
Another 5.2 million are employed part-time because they cannot find full time work, an increase of 850,000 from a year ago.
Wisconsin recorded the 3rd highest number of mass layoffs over the past year. And that was before Harley Davidson, General Motors/Janesville and Midwest Express announced layoffs.
When the original stimulus package was passed, President Bush refused to support extending unemployment benefits because his domestic policy agenda is limited to tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts.
Recall Mr. Bush originally campaigned that upper income tax cuts were justified by the nation's projected $5.2 trillion surplus.
When the recession began in March, 2001, shortly after he took office, the diagnosis had changed, but not Dr. Bush's medicine. Again the solution was high end tax cuts. The eventual $1.3 trillion tax cut was arrived at by taking 25% of the projected surplus despite the fact that it was disappearing in a sea of red ink.
As late as May of that year, when gas prices began to rise, President Bush's only solution was, you guessed it, upper income tax cuts.
Now unemployed workers are being held hostage to the President's supply side ideology.
In an editorial today the New York Times writes: "What is needed — now — is for Congress to extend jobless benefits for people who exhaust their initial 26 weeks of payments. Research is unequivocal that bolstered jobless benefits are more effective stimulus than tax rebates. They also have the advantage of being targeted to people in need...
Congress erred by not extending unemployment benefits in last February’s stimulus package. Lawmakers and Mr. Bush now have a second chance to fix that mistake. They must not squander it."
Congress must act now.
Most industries shed jobs last month, as has been the case since last November..
Notably, construction losses have spread from residential housing—reflecting the deep weakness in that sector—to non-residential building, which is also now on a consistent downtrend. Since the peak in construction employment in September 2006, the sector has shed almost 460,000 jobs.
Factory employment continues to slide, despite the export-boosting effect of the weaker dollar. In fact, the decline of 43,000 jobs in durable manufacturing (heavy industry) last month was the largest monthly loss since July 2003.
Almost 3 million unemployed workers have exhausted their benefits.
Another 5.2 million are employed part-time because they cannot find full time work, an increase of 850,000 from a year ago.
Wisconsin recorded the 3rd highest number of mass layoffs over the past year. And that was before Harley Davidson, General Motors/Janesville and Midwest Express announced layoffs.
When the original stimulus package was passed, President Bush refused to support extending unemployment benefits because his domestic policy agenda is limited to tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts.
Recall Mr. Bush originally campaigned that upper income tax cuts were justified by the nation's projected $5.2 trillion surplus.
When the recession began in March, 2001, shortly after he took office, the diagnosis had changed, but not Dr. Bush's medicine. Again the solution was high end tax cuts. The eventual $1.3 trillion tax cut was arrived at by taking 25% of the projected surplus despite the fact that it was disappearing in a sea of red ink.
As late as May of that year, when gas prices began to rise, President Bush's only solution was, you guessed it, upper income tax cuts.
Now unemployed workers are being held hostage to the President's supply side ideology.
In an editorial today the New York Times writes: "What is needed — now — is for Congress to extend jobless benefits for people who exhaust their initial 26 weeks of payments. Research is unequivocal that bolstered jobless benefits are more effective stimulus than tax rebates. They also have the advantage of being targeted to people in need...
Congress erred by not extending unemployment benefits in last February’s stimulus package. Lawmakers and Mr. Bush now have a second chance to fix that mistake. They must not squander it."
Congress must act now.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Recession deepens in Wisconsin
While economists debate whether the current economic slowdown is a recession, Wisconsinites are increasingly grappling with the nasty effects.
A total of 80,000 workers lost jobs in March.
Among these, were 7,100 Wisconsin workers, the third highest total in the nation, who were laid off in mass layoffs. Wisconsin also had the third highest 12-month increase in average weekly initial claims for these job losses behind only Pennsylvania and Ohio.
The Milwaukee area has been hard hit, losing 1300 over the past year. More layoffs are anticipated.
Partly as a result, bankruptcy filings in the Wisconsin increased by 29.5% in the first quarter of 2008! This increase was slightly higher than the national increase of 27%.
For the year, bankruptcy filings rose 39% in Wisconsin and 38% nationally.
Major medical expenditures are the single most important reason people file for bankruptcy followed by job loss and divorce. But as the recession deepens, job loss is becoming an increasingly important factor.
Buyers also vanished from the housing market in March, as sales of new homes plummeted to the lowest level since the housing recession of the 1990s.
Sales fell in every region of the country, with the Northeast suffering the steepest drop, 19.4 percent. Sales in the Midwest and the West dropped about 13 percent and sales in the South fell about 5 percent.
Builders are now faced with the biggest backlog of unsold homes in more than a quarter century, a sign that home values may continue to drop and that worst days of the housing slump may lie ahead.
Normally a recession reduces pressure on prices. But because of soaring international demand, particularly in China and India, prices of crude oil, gasoline, and food, continue to soar.
The surging cost of necessities has also led to belt-tightening among consumers. Spending on food and gasoline is effectively crowding out other purchases, leaving people with less to spend on furniture, clothing and electronics. Consequently, chains specializing in those goods are proving vulnerable.
Sales plummeted 4.5 percent during the last three months, the largest decline since the 1990-91 recession.
Sales declined at department stores, clothing stores and furniture stores, as well as at auto dealers.
The consumer spending slump and tightening credit markets have unleashed a wave of bankruptcies in retailing, prompting thousands of store closings that are expected to remake suburban malls and downtown shopping districts across the country.
Since last fall, eight mostly midsize chains — as diverse as the furniture store Levitz and the electronics seller Sharper Image — have filed for bankruptcy protection as they staggered under mounting debt and declining sales.
But the troubles are quickly spreading to bigger national companies, like Linens ‘n Things, the bedding and furniture retailer with 500 stores in 47 states, which may be forced to file for bankruptcy.
Retailers that can avoid bankruptcy are shutting down stores to preserve cash. Over the next year, Foot Locker plans to close 140 stores, Ann Taylor 117, and the jeweler Zales will close 100.
The downturn has even spread to discretionary spending. The New York Times reports that laser vision correction surgeries are expected to fall by 17% in 2008. Even spas, the ultimate in discretionary purchases, are cutting prices in an effort to keep customers.
As the economy has slowed so have tax revenues. So Wisconsin is now facing a $650 million deficit.
President Bush has refused to support legislation that would protect homeowners who were duped into taking out loans they could not afford from foreclosure. He has even refused to support extending unemployment benefits and increasing food stamp payments which are recognized as effective counter cyclical policies.
When the initial stimulus package was passed gas cost $3 a gallon. By the time the rebate checks arrive it could be up to $4. At that price most of the $100 billion will go to fill people's gas tanks and do more for oil producing economies than for our own.
Wisconsin's Congressional delegation should demand immediate action that helps those who are losing jobs and income and that helps revitalize the economy. A basic stimulus package should include:
* an extension of unemployment benefits
* an expansion of the food stamp program
* legislation that allows bankrupt homeowners to have their mortgages modified under court protection and provides them with financial assistance
* aid to states' experiencing deficits
The recession is deepening. More and more people are hurting. If states are forced to reduce spending to balance their budgets, the downturn will become more severe.
It is time for Congress to act!
A total of 80,000 workers lost jobs in March.
Among these, were 7,100 Wisconsin workers, the third highest total in the nation, who were laid off in mass layoffs. Wisconsin also had the third highest 12-month increase in average weekly initial claims for these job losses behind only Pennsylvania and Ohio.
The Milwaukee area has been hard hit, losing 1300 over the past year. More layoffs are anticipated.
Partly as a result, bankruptcy filings in the Wisconsin increased by 29.5% in the first quarter of 2008! This increase was slightly higher than the national increase of 27%.
For the year, bankruptcy filings rose 39% in Wisconsin and 38% nationally.
Major medical expenditures are the single most important reason people file for bankruptcy followed by job loss and divorce. But as the recession deepens, job loss is becoming an increasingly important factor.
Buyers also vanished from the housing market in March, as sales of new homes plummeted to the lowest level since the housing recession of the 1990s.
Sales fell in every region of the country, with the Northeast suffering the steepest drop, 19.4 percent. Sales in the Midwest and the West dropped about 13 percent and sales in the South fell about 5 percent.
Builders are now faced with the biggest backlog of unsold homes in more than a quarter century, a sign that home values may continue to drop and that worst days of the housing slump may lie ahead.
Normally a recession reduces pressure on prices. But because of soaring international demand, particularly in China and India, prices of crude oil, gasoline, and food, continue to soar.
The surging cost of necessities has also led to belt-tightening among consumers. Spending on food and gasoline is effectively crowding out other purchases, leaving people with less to spend on furniture, clothing and electronics. Consequently, chains specializing in those goods are proving vulnerable.
Sales plummeted 4.5 percent during the last three months, the largest decline since the 1990-91 recession.
Sales declined at department stores, clothing stores and furniture stores, as well as at auto dealers.
The consumer spending slump and tightening credit markets have unleashed a wave of bankruptcies in retailing, prompting thousands of store closings that are expected to remake suburban malls and downtown shopping districts across the country.
Since last fall, eight mostly midsize chains — as diverse as the furniture store Levitz and the electronics seller Sharper Image — have filed for bankruptcy protection as they staggered under mounting debt and declining sales.
But the troubles are quickly spreading to bigger national companies, like Linens ‘n Things, the bedding and furniture retailer with 500 stores in 47 states, which may be forced to file for bankruptcy.
Retailers that can avoid bankruptcy are shutting down stores to preserve cash. Over the next year, Foot Locker plans to close 140 stores, Ann Taylor 117, and the jeweler Zales will close 100.
The downturn has even spread to discretionary spending. The New York Times reports that laser vision correction surgeries are expected to fall by 17% in 2008. Even spas, the ultimate in discretionary purchases, are cutting prices in an effort to keep customers.
As the economy has slowed so have tax revenues. So Wisconsin is now facing a $650 million deficit.
President Bush has refused to support legislation that would protect homeowners who were duped into taking out loans they could not afford from foreclosure. He has even refused to support extending unemployment benefits and increasing food stamp payments which are recognized as effective counter cyclical policies.
When the initial stimulus package was passed gas cost $3 a gallon. By the time the rebate checks arrive it could be up to $4. At that price most of the $100 billion will go to fill people's gas tanks and do more for oil producing economies than for our own.
Wisconsin's Congressional delegation should demand immediate action that helps those who are losing jobs and income and that helps revitalize the economy. A basic stimulus package should include:
* an extension of unemployment benefits
* an expansion of the food stamp program
* legislation that allows bankrupt homeowners to have their mortgages modified under court protection and provides them with financial assistance
* aid to states' experiencing deficits
The recession is deepening. More and more people are hurting. If states are forced to reduce spending to balance their budgets, the downturn will become more severe.
It is time for Congress to act!
Thursday, April 24, 2008
President is wrong-this is a recession!
Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, writes:
President Bush says that the economy is not in a recession. He's wrong. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy has lost jobs for three consecutive months while the private sector has lost jobs for four consecutive months. This has never happened except in periods associated with recessions. The private sector has now lost 320,000 jobs since November.
Need more evidence? The unemployment rate is up 0.7 percentage points from a year ago, residential construction continues to fall, and nonresidential construction is now falling as well. Consumption, which accounts for 70 percent of gross domestic product, has been flat since November. Despite all this, President Bush still doesn't think we're in a recession? I guess that's no surprise coming from someone who thinks that things are going well in Iraq.
President Bush says that the economy is not in a recession. He's wrong. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy has lost jobs for three consecutive months while the private sector has lost jobs for four consecutive months. This has never happened except in periods associated with recessions. The private sector has now lost 320,000 jobs since November.
Need more evidence? The unemployment rate is up 0.7 percentage points from a year ago, residential construction continues to fall, and nonresidential construction is now falling as well. Consumption, which accounts for 70 percent of gross domestic product, has been flat since November. Despite all this, President Bush still doesn't think we're in a recession? I guess that's no surprise coming from someone who thinks that things are going well in Iraq.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The economic boom that wasn't!
If you want to know why 81% of American disapprove of President's Bush's handling of the economy look no further than the kitchen table?
Recent Census Bureau data tells us that the "economic boom" that just ended never happened for most American families!
In 2000 at the end of the previous economic expansion, the median American family made about $61,000, according to the Census Bureau’s inflation-adjusted numbers.
In 2007, in what appears to be the final year of the most recent expansion, the median family, amazingly, made less — about $60,500.
David Leonhardt, a New York Times economics columnist, reports:
This has never happened before, at least not for as long as the government has been keeping records. In every other expansion since World War II, the buying power of most American families grew while the economy did. You can think of this as the most basic test of an economy’s health: does it produce ever-rising living standards for its citizens?
In the second half of the 20th century, the United States passed the test in a way that arguably no other country ever has. It became, as the cliché goes, the richest country on earth. Now, though, most families aren’t getting any richer.
More than anything else — more than even the war in Iraq — the stagnation of the great American middle-class machine explains the glum national mood today. As part of a poll that will be released Wednesday, the Pew Research Center asked people how they had done over the last five years. During that time, remember, the overall economy grew every year, often at a good pace.
Yet most respondents said they had either been stuck in place or fallen backward. Pew says this is the most downbeat short-term assessment of personal progress in almost a half century of polling.
Recent Census Bureau data tells us that the "economic boom" that just ended never happened for most American families!
In 2000 at the end of the previous economic expansion, the median American family made about $61,000, according to the Census Bureau’s inflation-adjusted numbers.
In 2007, in what appears to be the final year of the most recent expansion, the median family, amazingly, made less — about $60,500.
David Leonhardt, a New York Times economics columnist, reports:
This has never happened before, at least not for as long as the government has been keeping records. In every other expansion since World War II, the buying power of most American families grew while the economy did. You can think of this as the most basic test of an economy’s health: does it produce ever-rising living standards for its citizens?
In the second half of the 20th century, the United States passed the test in a way that arguably no other country ever has. It became, as the cliché goes, the richest country on earth. Now, though, most families aren’t getting any richer.
More than anything else — more than even the war in Iraq — the stagnation of the great American middle-class machine explains the glum national mood today. As part of a poll that will be released Wednesday, the Pew Research Center asked people how they had done over the last five years. During that time, remember, the overall economy grew every year, often at a good pace.
Yet most respondents said they had either been stuck in place or fallen backward. Pew says this is the most downbeat short-term assessment of personal progress in almost a half century of polling.
Leonhardt suggests that President Bush's economic policies are not responsible for the failure of family income to grow because these are long term trends.
Leonhardt is right that these are long term trends, dating back to the Reagan administration when real incomes began to fall. But he is wrong when he suggests that economic policy doesn't make a difference.
Bush's hyper supply side model of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, opposition to increasing the minimum wage, support for trade bills that promote capital's interest and ignore labor and environmental protections, and failure to support reforms facilitating union organization have all contributed to these trends.
While real wages and family income have declined in the United States they have increased in several European countries that have not embraced the hyper market model of deregulation, financial liberalization and privatization that has contributed to driving down the wages of hourly non supervisory workers in the U.S.
The Republican Presidential nominee, John McCain, has endorsed these failed policies including the upper income tax cuts which he originally opposed as fiscally irresponsible.
As the November election come into focus and Republican operatives raise wedge issues to divert the electorate's attention, the Democratic nominee will need to focus on the economy like a laser beam!
"It's the economy stupid!" And economic policy matters!
Friday, February 8, 2008
Bush budget: misguided priorities and fiscally irresponsible
President Bush's last budget, writes the New York Times, "...is a grim guided tour through his misplaced priorities, failed fiscal policies and the disastrous legacy that he will leave for the next president. And even that requires you to accept the White House’s optimistic accounting, which seven years of experience tells us would be foolish in the extreme...
What will definitely outlast Mr. Bush for years to come are big deficits, a military so battered by the Iraq war that it will take hundreds of billions of dollars to repair it and stunted social programs that have been squeezed to pay for Mr. Bush’s misguided military adventure and his misguided tax cuts for the wealthy.
The president claimed on Monday that his plan would put the country on the path to balancing the budget by 2012. That is nonsense. His own proposal projects a $410 billion deficit for 2008 and a $407 billion deficit next year. Even more disingenuous, Mr. Bush’s projection for a balanced budget in 2012 assumes only partial funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for 2009, and no such spending — zero — starting in 2010.
It also assumes that there will be no long-running relief from the alternative minimum tax — which would be ruinous for the middle class — and that there will be deep cuts in Medicare and other health care spending that have proved to be politically impossible to enact.
Read the entire editorial here.
What will definitely outlast Mr. Bush for years to come are big deficits, a military so battered by the Iraq war that it will take hundreds of billions of dollars to repair it and stunted social programs that have been squeezed to pay for Mr. Bush’s misguided military adventure and his misguided tax cuts for the wealthy.
The president claimed on Monday that his plan would put the country on the path to balancing the budget by 2012. That is nonsense. His own proposal projects a $410 billion deficit for 2008 and a $407 billion deficit next year. Even more disingenuous, Mr. Bush’s projection for a balanced budget in 2012 assumes only partial funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for 2009, and no such spending — zero — starting in 2010.
It also assumes that there will be no long-running relief from the alternative minimum tax — which would be ruinous for the middle class — and that there will be deep cuts in Medicare and other health care spending that have proved to be politically impossible to enact.
Read the entire editorial here.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Stimulus plan a "lemon"
Over the past three weeks, even Republicans have been forced to acknowledge the nation's growing economic problems and the need for decisive action by the federal government.
It's worth noting that President Bush and his GOP agreed to act only after the downturn hit Wall Street, exacting an unacceptable toll on the Republican Party's financial and political base. As a result, the Fed enacted the single largest interest rate cut in its history and Congress has moved quickly to design a fiscal stimulus package.
For a stimulus package to be effective, it must stimulate spending (demand) quickly. The essence of an effective stimulus package is for government demand (spending) to step in when private spending (consumption and private investment) is declining.
A recent study by the non- partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded that extending unemployment benefits and increasing food stamps, policies that get money to folks who will spend it immediately, is the most effective form of economic stimulus.
Even President Bush was forced to acknowledge this. As a result, he temporarily dropped his initial proposal for making his high income tax cuts permanent since it would not have affected the economy until 2011.
So what has the Democratically controlled Congress agreed to? Another round of tax cuts for people who are less likely to spend it immediately!
Paul Krugman writes that the compromise plan is nothing less than a "lemon:"
Unfortunately, the plan — which essentially consists of nothing but tax cuts and gives most of those tax cuts to people in fairly good financial shape — looks like a lemon...
Specifically, the Democrats appear to have buckled in the face of the Bush administration’s ideological rigidity, dropping demands for provisions that would have helped those most in need. And those happen to be the same provisions that might actually have made the stimulus plan effective...
The entire column is worth reading
It's worth noting that President Bush and his GOP agreed to act only after the downturn hit Wall Street, exacting an unacceptable toll on the Republican Party's financial and political base. As a result, the Fed enacted the single largest interest rate cut in its history and Congress has moved quickly to design a fiscal stimulus package.
For a stimulus package to be effective, it must stimulate spending (demand) quickly. The essence of an effective stimulus package is for government demand (spending) to step in when private spending (consumption and private investment) is declining.
A recent study by the non- partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded that extending unemployment benefits and increasing food stamps, policies that get money to folks who will spend it immediately, is the most effective form of economic stimulus.
Even President Bush was forced to acknowledge this. As a result, he temporarily dropped his initial proposal for making his high income tax cuts permanent since it would not have affected the economy until 2011.
So what has the Democratically controlled Congress agreed to? Another round of tax cuts for people who are less likely to spend it immediately!
Paul Krugman writes that the compromise plan is nothing less than a "lemon:"
Unfortunately, the plan — which essentially consists of nothing but tax cuts and gives most of those tax cuts to people in fairly good financial shape — looks like a lemon...
Specifically, the Democrats appear to have buckled in the face of the Bush administration’s ideological rigidity, dropping demands for provisions that would have helped those most in need. And those happen to be the same provisions that might actually have made the stimulus plan effective...
The entire column is worth reading
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Fixing our infrastructure will jump start the economy!
The unemployment rate surged to 5 percent in December as the economy added a meager 18,000 jobs, the smallest monthly increase in four years.
The private sector actually lost 13,000 jobs.
The swift deterioration in the job market indicates that troubles once confined to real estate and construction are spilling into the broader economy, threatening the ability of American consumers to keep spending.
In response, President Bush has proposed making his high end tax cuts permanent.
This is not surprising. Cutting the taxes of the wealthy has been the singular policy proposal of this administration for any and all problems.
When President Bush was running for office in 2000, he proposed high end income tax cuts, the elimination of the inheritance tax, and cutting investment income taxes because the country was running a projected $5.2 trillion dollar surplus. He proposed a $1.3 trillion cut (25% of the total projected surplus) because he: "...trusted the people, not the government."
Shortly after he assumed the Presidency, in March 2001, the economy fell into a recession. But Bush's response was the same medicine-high end tax cuts- for an entirely different ailment.
In May 2001, as gas prices began to soar for the first time under his administration, President Bush proposed, you guessed it, high end tax cuts as the solution which Congress ultimately passed
President Bush, and all of the Republican candidates competing to replace him, are wrong when they argue that making tax cuts that have disproportionately benefited the wealthy permanent will stimulate the economy.
The 2001-2003 jobless recovery and the relatively anemic job growth that followed suggest that high end tax cuts are not an effective stimulus precisely because the wealthy are the least likely to immediately spend their tax cut windfalls, although that is precisely what is needed to jump-start the economy.
Making high end tax cuts permanent, moreover, would not increase spending this year when a stimulus is needed. It wouldn’t affect the economy until 2011 since that is when the tax cuts are set to expire.
Making the tax cuts permanent, however, would increase the country’s deficit for years, increasing interest payments on the debt that will have to be paid by future generations and reducing the funds available for needed social investments in education, job training, research and development, science, medicine, medical care, energy and infrastructure.
On Sunday the New York Times called for an economic stimulus package to revitalize the failing economy.
The Times argued that middle and low (income or payroll) tax cuts would be effective since that money would be spent immediately.
Equally if not more, effective than targeted tax cuts, would be a plan to significantly increase investment in the nation’s failing public infrastructure — highways, bridges, rail systems, water works, public schools, port facilities, sewers, airports, energy grids, tunnels, dams and levees.
California’s experience in early 90’s demonstrates what a well-timed shock of public spending can do for a depressed economy.
California was mired in a severe recession when an earthquake rocked Southern California in January, 1993. It was the costliest in U.S. history. Sixty-one people died. More than 9,000 were injured. The quake destroyed more than $15 billion of property, including 21,000 housing units. It devastated highways in the nation's most auto-dependent region.
The federal government responded with disaster relief. The immediate infusion of $9.5 billion in emergency assistance and public works funds revived the depressed economy. Less than six months after the earthquake, Southern California's economy was growing and generating jobs for the first time since 1990.
The tragic collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis, while not a natural disaster like the Los Angeles earthquake, is the canary in nation's failing infrastructure mine. Our nation's infrastructure is crumbling.
A study released in May by the Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young found that 83 percent of the nation’s transportation infrastructure was not capable of meeting the country’s needs over the next 10 years. The American Society of Civil Engineers, in its latest national report card, gave transportation infrastructure a D. It estimates that government should be spending $320 billion a year over the next five years — double the current outlay — just to bring up to par what already exists.
A public infrastructure investment program would address one of the nation's biggest problems, create high wage jobs, save lives, decrease business's cost of transportation and stimulate the economy! If tied to local hiring and job training, it could help address the unacceptably high rates of black unemployment which are rising as the economy slows.
Other ideas should be on the table as well. The nation has a shortage of low and moderate income housing particularly in fast growing suburban areas experiencing labor shortages. We are falling further behind our international competitors in developing a high speed communications infrastructure. And we lack modern high speed train and energy efficient (light rail) transportation systems.
Before we waste valuable national resources by making President Bush's inefficient high end tax cuts permanent, we should examine the more effective economic stimulus tools in our policy tool box. It is after all, our money (and country for that matter) and as someone once said, in a different context, we know better than a lame duck politician what to do with it.
The private sector actually lost 13,000 jobs.
The swift deterioration in the job market indicates that troubles once confined to real estate and construction are spilling into the broader economy, threatening the ability of American consumers to keep spending.
In response, President Bush has proposed making his high end tax cuts permanent.
This is not surprising. Cutting the taxes of the wealthy has been the singular policy proposal of this administration for any and all problems.
When President Bush was running for office in 2000, he proposed high end income tax cuts, the elimination of the inheritance tax, and cutting investment income taxes because the country was running a projected $5.2 trillion dollar surplus. He proposed a $1.3 trillion cut (25% of the total projected surplus) because he: "...trusted the people, not the government."
Shortly after he assumed the Presidency, in March 2001, the economy fell into a recession. But Bush's response was the same medicine-high end tax cuts- for an entirely different ailment.
In May 2001, as gas prices began to soar for the first time under his administration, President Bush proposed, you guessed it, high end tax cuts as the solution which Congress ultimately passed
President Bush, and all of the Republican candidates competing to replace him, are wrong when they argue that making tax cuts that have disproportionately benefited the wealthy permanent will stimulate the economy.
The 2001-2003 jobless recovery and the relatively anemic job growth that followed suggest that high end tax cuts are not an effective stimulus precisely because the wealthy are the least likely to immediately spend their tax cut windfalls, although that is precisely what is needed to jump-start the economy.
Making high end tax cuts permanent, moreover, would not increase spending this year when a stimulus is needed. It wouldn’t affect the economy until 2011 since that is when the tax cuts are set to expire.
Making the tax cuts permanent, however, would increase the country’s deficit for years, increasing interest payments on the debt that will have to be paid by future generations and reducing the funds available for needed social investments in education, job training, research and development, science, medicine, medical care, energy and infrastructure.
On Sunday the New York Times called for an economic stimulus package to revitalize the failing economy.
The Times argued that middle and low (income or payroll) tax cuts would be effective since that money would be spent immediately.
Equally if not more, effective than targeted tax cuts, would be a plan to significantly increase investment in the nation’s failing public infrastructure — highways, bridges, rail systems, water works, public schools, port facilities, sewers, airports, energy grids, tunnels, dams and levees.
California’s experience in early 90’s demonstrates what a well-timed shock of public spending can do for a depressed economy.
California was mired in a severe recession when an earthquake rocked Southern California in January, 1993. It was the costliest in U.S. history. Sixty-one people died. More than 9,000 were injured. The quake destroyed more than $15 billion of property, including 21,000 housing units. It devastated highways in the nation's most auto-dependent region.
The federal government responded with disaster relief. The immediate infusion of $9.5 billion in emergency assistance and public works funds revived the depressed economy. Less than six months after the earthquake, Southern California's economy was growing and generating jobs for the first time since 1990.
The tragic collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis, while not a natural disaster like the Los Angeles earthquake, is the canary in nation's failing infrastructure mine. Our nation's infrastructure is crumbling.
A study released in May by the Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young found that 83 percent of the nation’s transportation infrastructure was not capable of meeting the country’s needs over the next 10 years. The American Society of Civil Engineers, in its latest national report card, gave transportation infrastructure a D. It estimates that government should be spending $320 billion a year over the next five years — double the current outlay — just to bring up to par what already exists.
A public infrastructure investment program would address one of the nation's biggest problems, create high wage jobs, save lives, decrease business's cost of transportation and stimulate the economy! If tied to local hiring and job training, it could help address the unacceptably high rates of black unemployment which are rising as the economy slows.
Other ideas should be on the table as well. The nation has a shortage of low and moderate income housing particularly in fast growing suburban areas experiencing labor shortages. We are falling further behind our international competitors in developing a high speed communications infrastructure. And we lack modern high speed train and energy efficient (light rail) transportation systems.
Before we waste valuable national resources by making President Bush's inefficient high end tax cuts permanent, we should examine the more effective economic stimulus tools in our policy tool box. It is after all, our money (and country for that matter) and as someone once said, in a different context, we know better than a lame duck politician what to do with it.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
All I got for X-mas was a stocking full of debt!
One present none of us want to open this X-mas morning is the one left by President George Bush, Grover Norquist and their neocon friends-the growing national debt.
Federal borrowing from the public has mushroomed since 2001, by 53 percent, to $5.1 trillion. The single biggest cause of this spiraling debt has been the President's gifts to the very wealthiest Americans who double as his campaign financiers-high end tax cuts totaling $1.8 trillion.
From 2002 to 2011, forgone revenue from the cuts will account for 37 percent of the federal budget’s descent into the red, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The neocons war of choice in Iraq and defense spending come next, producing 30 percent of the deterioration, followed by domestic spending at 11 percent.
President Bush has been one of this nation's most fiscally irresponsible Presidents.
This holiday season the richest Americans, including hedge fund and private equity managers who pay a lower tax rate on their million and sometimes billion dollar incomes than most working American pay on theirs, have much to celebrate.
But most American taxpayers, their children and grandchildren will be left with little more than a stocking full of debt, $144,434 per family.
We will have to repay this borrowed money with interest, which means fewer federal dollars to spend on everything else for decades to come, including health care, infrastructure repair, emergency response, chemical plant security and alternative energy.
The New York Times recently ran an excellent editorial on President Bush' fiscally reckless tenure and his recent political posturing. It's worth the read.
Federal borrowing from the public has mushroomed since 2001, by 53 percent, to $5.1 trillion. The single biggest cause of this spiraling debt has been the President's gifts to the very wealthiest Americans who double as his campaign financiers-high end tax cuts totaling $1.8 trillion.
From 2002 to 2011, forgone revenue from the cuts will account for 37 percent of the federal budget’s descent into the red, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The neocons war of choice in Iraq and defense spending come next, producing 30 percent of the deterioration, followed by domestic spending at 11 percent.
President Bush has been one of this nation's most fiscally irresponsible Presidents.
This holiday season the richest Americans, including hedge fund and private equity managers who pay a lower tax rate on their million and sometimes billion dollar incomes than most working American pay on theirs, have much to celebrate.
But most American taxpayers, their children and grandchildren will be left with little more than a stocking full of debt, $144,434 per family.
We will have to repay this borrowed money with interest, which means fewer federal dollars to spend on everything else for decades to come, including health care, infrastructure repair, emergency response, chemical plant security and alternative energy.
The New York Times recently ran an excellent editorial on President Bush' fiscally reckless tenure and his recent political posturing. It's worth the read.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Keith Olberman's special comment on Bush and Iran
Keith Olberman, in a special comment, says that President Bush repeatedly argued that Iran was a threat to the US because it had nuclear weapons when he knew it did not:
We have either a president who is too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War Three about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would be fantastic, irresponsible hyperbole - or we have a president too transcendently stupid not to have asked - at what now appears to have been a series of opportunities to do so - whether the fairy tales he either created or was fed, were still even remotely plausible.
A pathological presidential liar, or an idiot-in-chief. It is the nightmare scenario of political science fiction: A critical juncture in our history and, contained in either answer, a president manifestly unfit to serve, and behind him in the vice presidency: an unapologetic war-monger who has long been seeing a world visible only to himself.
We have either a president who is too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War Three about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would be fantastic, irresponsible hyperbole - or we have a president too transcendently stupid not to have asked - at what now appears to have been a series of opportunities to do so - whether the fairy tales he either created or was fed, were still even remotely plausible.
A pathological presidential liar, or an idiot-in-chief. It is the nightmare scenario of political science fiction: A critical juncture in our history and, contained in either answer, a president manifestly unfit to serve, and behind him in the vice presidency: an unapologetic war-monger who has long been seeing a world visible only to himself.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
It's too late to say your sorry for making poisonous toy beads
I thought I was reading the Onion when I saw the headline: "Chinese company says its sorry for making poisonous toy beads"
But this was a headline in a Business Section article in none other than the New York Times!
A statement, issued by the Hong Kong company that manufactured millions of poisonous toy beads in mainland China, JSSY Ltd., read: “Our apologies to all the children who ate the beads by accident and their parents, and overseas consumers. We apologize for all the negative effect caused by this incident to China manufacturers. We apologize for the negative effect on ‘Made in China.'"
Is this an apology or damage control for China Incorporated?
While expressing regret over producing poisonous beads. most of JSSY's apology focuses on the public relations disaster, "the negative effect," that the production of harmful toys could have on Chinese manufacturing companies.
Carter Keithley, the president of the Toy Industry Association in the United States, confirmed this when he said at a toy industry conference two weeks ago in Guangzhou that the bead recall had made it harder for American toy vendors to promise consumers that China was stepping up its vigilance.
“This latest incident has made it extremely awkward for us to continue that defense,” he said.
As is usually the case, the company's incentive for using beads made of poisonous chemicals was a higher rate of profit.
Mr. Liao, chairman and owner of JSSY, said that his company had chosen a glue ingredient for the beads that cost half as much as the glue ingredient that the beads’ main distributor, Moose Enterprise of Australia, thought JSSY was using.
Liang Shuhe, a deputy director general of China’s ministry of commerce, seemed to be excusing Chinese companies that have been found to use unsafe material in producing a range of toys from beads to Mattel products to the Thomas the Train Engine when he said: "Chinese toy makers faced narrowing profit margins — a result of rising wages and the appreciation of the yuan against the dollar — but should still meet safety standards."
Hand ringing and apologies don't alter the fact that toy manufacturing has relocated to China because it is cheaper-wages are lower and labor and environmental protections are virtually non-existent.
If manufacturers award contracts solely on price, they are creating perverse incentives that lead to abusive labor practices, the use of cheap, unsafe chemicals and materials, and environmental degradation.
The United States has only one full-time employee to test imported toys despite recalls in the last two months of more than 13 million Chinese made toys with lead levels that sometimes reached 200 times the safety limit. Remarkably, the Bush administration is actively opposing efforts to increase the number of inspectors and strengthen the Consumer Protection Agency's enforcement tools.
In ECON 101 we learned that the consumer is sovereign! But unsafe toys are not a rational consumer choice!
Poisonous beads and lead painted toys are the byproduct of an unregulated international economy designed by transnational corporations and their free trade accomplices that places a premium on low cost production and devalues quality. Unfortunately, dangerous toys are lining the shelves of your local big box retailer this holiday season.
The on-line title of the Times article has been sanitized to read:" Producer of Poisonous Toy Beads Issues Apology." Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
That begs the real question many consumers are asking this holiday season: can we be sure that the toys we buy for our kids and grand kids won't kill them?
Otherwise as the Kinks' song goes: "It's too late to say your sorry!"
But this was a headline in a Business Section article in none other than the New York Times!
A statement, issued by the Hong Kong company that manufactured millions of poisonous toy beads in mainland China, JSSY Ltd., read: “Our apologies to all the children who ate the beads by accident and their parents, and overseas consumers. We apologize for all the negative effect caused by this incident to China manufacturers. We apologize for the negative effect on ‘Made in China.'"
Is this an apology or damage control for China Incorporated?
While expressing regret over producing poisonous beads. most of JSSY's apology focuses on the public relations disaster, "the negative effect," that the production of harmful toys could have on Chinese manufacturing companies.
Carter Keithley, the president of the Toy Industry Association in the United States, confirmed this when he said at a toy industry conference two weeks ago in Guangzhou that the bead recall had made it harder for American toy vendors to promise consumers that China was stepping up its vigilance.
“This latest incident has made it extremely awkward for us to continue that defense,” he said.
As is usually the case, the company's incentive for using beads made of poisonous chemicals was a higher rate of profit.
Mr. Liao, chairman and owner of JSSY, said that his company had chosen a glue ingredient for the beads that cost half as much as the glue ingredient that the beads’ main distributor, Moose Enterprise of Australia, thought JSSY was using.
Liang Shuhe, a deputy director general of China’s ministry of commerce, seemed to be excusing Chinese companies that have been found to use unsafe material in producing a range of toys from beads to Mattel products to the Thomas the Train Engine when he said: "Chinese toy makers faced narrowing profit margins — a result of rising wages and the appreciation of the yuan against the dollar — but should still meet safety standards."
Hand ringing and apologies don't alter the fact that toy manufacturing has relocated to China because it is cheaper-wages are lower and labor and environmental protections are virtually non-existent.
If manufacturers award contracts solely on price, they are creating perverse incentives that lead to abusive labor practices, the use of cheap, unsafe chemicals and materials, and environmental degradation.
The United States has only one full-time employee to test imported toys despite recalls in the last two months of more than 13 million Chinese made toys with lead levels that sometimes reached 200 times the safety limit. Remarkably, the Bush administration is actively opposing efforts to increase the number of inspectors and strengthen the Consumer Protection Agency's enforcement tools.
In ECON 101 we learned that the consumer is sovereign! But unsafe toys are not a rational consumer choice!
Poisonous beads and lead painted toys are the byproduct of an unregulated international economy designed by transnational corporations and their free trade accomplices that places a premium on low cost production and devalues quality. Unfortunately, dangerous toys are lining the shelves of your local big box retailer this holiday season.
The on-line title of the Times article has been sanitized to read:" Producer of Poisonous Toy Beads Issues Apology." Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
That begs the real question many consumers are asking this holiday season: can we be sure that the toys we buy for our kids and grand kids won't kill them?
Otherwise as the Kinks' song goes: "It's too late to say your sorry!"
Monday, November 26, 2007
Bush's sudden passion for fiscal discipline is hypocrtical
The New York Times wrote today that:
Mr. Bush’s sudden passion for fiscal discipline is hypocritical...
This White House is guilty of runaway spending — on the war and on tax cuts for the rich. Ending the war and rolling back excessive tax cuts are the way to control spending, not cutting needed government services."
I couldn't have said it better myself.
In fact, I did say it myself when on September 29, 2007 I wrote:
The two main causes of the Bush era deficits are its high end tax cuts and the War in Iraq.
Congressional Budget Office data show that Bush's tax cuts have been the single largest contributor to the reemergence of substantial budget deficits. Legislation enacted since 2001 has added almost $2.3 trillion to deficits between 2001 and 2006, with half of the deterioration in the budget due to the tax cuts (about a third was due to increases in security spending, and only a sixth to increases in domestic spending).
56.5% of these tax cuts went to the richest 10% of wage earners, those averaging $256,000. Only 14.7% went to the bottom 60% who average $44,000.
Unlike in previous wars, the United States has cut taxes at the same time it has increased military spending."It's fair to say all of the money spent on the war has been borrowed," says Richard Kogan, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank in Washington. "But eventually everything has to be paid for."
And the bill is growing!
Just last week President Bush requested an additional $42.3 billion in “emergency” funding for Iraq and Afghanistan. If passed, the 2008 war bill will be almost $190 billion, the same as the 10 year Farm Bill increase the Journal singled out for criticism and the largest single-year total for these wars. It is an increase of 15 percent from 2007.
It will bring the year end total for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars since Sept. 11, 2001 to $800 billion, still less than half the $2 trillion total projected cost.
As Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen once said about the Defense budget, "a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money"-money that could buy a lot of healthcare, infrastructure, early childhood education or deficit reduction!
Read the entire New York Times editorial here.
Mr. Bush’s sudden passion for fiscal discipline is hypocritical...
This White House is guilty of runaway spending — on the war and on tax cuts for the rich. Ending the war and rolling back excessive tax cuts are the way to control spending, not cutting needed government services."
I couldn't have said it better myself.
In fact, I did say it myself when on September 29, 2007 I wrote:
The two main causes of the Bush era deficits are its high end tax cuts and the War in Iraq.
Congressional Budget Office data show that Bush's tax cuts have been the single largest contributor to the reemergence of substantial budget deficits. Legislation enacted since 2001 has added almost $2.3 trillion to deficits between 2001 and 2006, with half of the deterioration in the budget due to the tax cuts (about a third was due to increases in security spending, and only a sixth to increases in domestic spending).
56.5% of these tax cuts went to the richest 10% of wage earners, those averaging $256,000. Only 14.7% went to the bottom 60% who average $44,000.
Unlike in previous wars, the United States has cut taxes at the same time it has increased military spending."It's fair to say all of the money spent on the war has been borrowed," says Richard Kogan, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank in Washington. "But eventually everything has to be paid for."
And the bill is growing!
Just last week President Bush requested an additional $42.3 billion in “emergency” funding for Iraq and Afghanistan. If passed, the 2008 war bill will be almost $190 billion, the same as the 10 year Farm Bill increase the Journal singled out for criticism and the largest single-year total for these wars. It is an increase of 15 percent from 2007.
It will bring the year end total for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars since Sept. 11, 2001 to $800 billion, still less than half the $2 trillion total projected cost.
As Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen once said about the Defense budget, "a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money"-money that could buy a lot of healthcare, infrastructure, early childhood education or deficit reduction!
Read the entire New York Times editorial here.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Stiglitz: the economic consequences of Mr. Bush
Nobel laureate and former Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, Joseph E. Stiglitz, has written a scathing critique of the Bush administration's failed economic policies.
In a column entitled "The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush," he writes:
When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make front-page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page.
I can hear an irritated counterthrust already. The president has not driven the United States into a recession during his almost seven years in office. Unemployment stands at a respectable 4.6 percent. Well, fine. But the other side of the ledger groans with distress: a tax code that has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time this president leaves Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-$850 billion trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris—or even the Yukon—becomes a venture in high finance.
And it gets worse. After almost seven years of this president, the United States is less prepared than ever to face the future. We have not been educating enough engineers and scientists, people with the skills we will need to compete with China and India. We have not been investing in the kinds of basic research that made us the technological powerhouse of the late 20th century. And although the president now understands—or so he says—that we must begin to wean ourselves from oil and coal, we have on his watch become more deeply dependent on both.
Up to now, the conventional wisdom has been that Herbert Hoover, whose policies aggravated the Great Depression, is the odds-on claimant for the mantle “worst president” when it comes to stewardship of the American economy. Once Franklin Roosevelt assumed office and reversed Hoover’s policies, the country began to recover. The economic effects of Bush’s presidency are more insidious than those of Hoover, harder to reverse, and likely to be longer-lasting. There is no threat of America’s being displaced from its position as the world’s richest economy. But our grandchildren will still be living with, and struggling with, the economic consequences of Mr. Bush.
It's a long, comprehensive critique that is well worth the read. Here's the link.
In a column entitled "The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush," he writes:
When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make front-page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page.
I can hear an irritated counterthrust already. The president has not driven the United States into a recession during his almost seven years in office. Unemployment stands at a respectable 4.6 percent. Well, fine. But the other side of the ledger groans with distress: a tax code that has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time this president leaves Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-$850 billion trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris—or even the Yukon—becomes a venture in high finance.
And it gets worse. After almost seven years of this president, the United States is less prepared than ever to face the future. We have not been educating enough engineers and scientists, people with the skills we will need to compete with China and India. We have not been investing in the kinds of basic research that made us the technological powerhouse of the late 20th century. And although the president now understands—or so he says—that we must begin to wean ourselves from oil and coal, we have on his watch become more deeply dependent on both.
Up to now, the conventional wisdom has been that Herbert Hoover, whose policies aggravated the Great Depression, is the odds-on claimant for the mantle “worst president” when it comes to stewardship of the American economy. Once Franklin Roosevelt assumed office and reversed Hoover’s policies, the country began to recover. The economic effects of Bush’s presidency are more insidious than those of Hoover, harder to reverse, and likely to be longer-lasting. There is no threat of America’s being displaced from its position as the world’s richest economy. But our grandchildren will still be living with, and struggling with, the economic consequences of Mr. Bush.
It's a long, comprehensive critique that is well worth the read. Here's the link.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Bush administration's fuzzy math
Last week the Bush administration reported that the U.S. budget deficit had fallen to $162.8 billion, the lowest amount in five years.
Don't believe it.
Fortune's Allan Sloan had predicted the Bush celebration in early September arguing the deficit is much, much bigger than you think.
See Jack Cafferty's refutation of the Bush administration's "fuzzy math."
Don't believe it.
Fortune's Allan Sloan had predicted the Bush celebration in early September arguing the deficit is much, much bigger than you think.
See Jack Cafferty's refutation of the Bush administration's "fuzzy math."
Friday, October 12, 2007
Republicans lack ideas-engage in character assassination
The New York Times' Paul Krugman has an excellent column on the Republican Party's vicious smear campaign against the twelve year old boy who gave the Democratic Party's response to President Bush's veto of Congress's bipartisan expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance program (SCHIP).
Frost relied on SCHIP after suffering severe head injuries in an automobile accident because his family did not have health insurance like 47 million other Americans.
Krugman writes:
...the Graeme Frost case is a perfect illustration of the modern right-wing political machine at work, and in particular its routine reliance on character assassination in place of honest debate. If service members oppose a Republican war, they’re “phony soldiers”; if Michael J. Fox opposes Bush policy on stem cells, he’s faking his Parkinson’s symptoms; if an injured 12-year-old child makes the case for a government health insurance program, he’s a fraud.
Meanwhile, leading conservative politicians, far from trying to distance themselves from these smears, rush to embrace them. And some people in the news media are still willing to be used as patsies.
Politics aside, the Graeme Frost case demonstrates the true depth of the health care crisis: every other advanced country has universal health insurance, but in America, insurance is now out of reach for many hard-working families, even if they have incomes some might call middle-class.
And there’s one more point that should not be forgotten: ultimately, this isn’t about the Frost parents. It’s about Graeme Frost and his sister.
I don’t know about you, but I think American children who need medical care should get it, period. Even if you think adults have made bad choices — a baseless smear in the case of the Frosts, but put that on one side — only a truly vicious political movement would respond by punishing their injured children.
Here is the entire column.
Frost relied on SCHIP after suffering severe head injuries in an automobile accident because his family did not have health insurance like 47 million other Americans.
Krugman writes:
...the Graeme Frost case is a perfect illustration of the modern right-wing political machine at work, and in particular its routine reliance on character assassination in place of honest debate. If service members oppose a Republican war, they’re “phony soldiers”; if Michael J. Fox opposes Bush policy on stem cells, he’s faking his Parkinson’s symptoms; if an injured 12-year-old child makes the case for a government health insurance program, he’s a fraud.
Meanwhile, leading conservative politicians, far from trying to distance themselves from these smears, rush to embrace them. And some people in the news media are still willing to be used as patsies.
Politics aside, the Graeme Frost case demonstrates the true depth of the health care crisis: every other advanced country has universal health insurance, but in America, insurance is now out of reach for many hard-working families, even if they have incomes some might call middle-class.
And there’s one more point that should not be forgotten: ultimately, this isn’t about the Frost parents. It’s about Graeme Frost and his sister.
I don’t know about you, but I think American children who need medical care should get it, period. Even if you think adults have made bad choices — a baseless smear in the case of the Frosts, but put that on one side — only a truly vicious political movement would respond by punishing their injured children.
Here is the entire column.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Milwaukee Journal proscribes wrong deficit reduction medicine
A Milwaukee Journal editorial recently opined that "A Republican Congress abandoned its principles and left the country ill-prepared to meet long-term obligations." "Fiscal discipline is needed" it concluded.
The piece criticised the $190 billion 2002 Farm Bill, 70% of which went to the richest 10% of farmers. It also targeted the new Medicare prescription drug benefit.
Both could charitably be described as socialism for the rich-U.S. agribusiness, insurance and pharmaceuticals companies!
While they are poorly designed public policy, neither is at the heart of the deficit problem.
By failing to identify how the Bush administration has squandered a projected $5.2 trillion surplus, the Journal is fueling the erroneous perception that out of control social spending and entitlements are to blame.
Nothing could be further from the truth
The two main causes of the Bush era deficits are its high end tax cuts and the War in Iraq.
Congressional Budget Office data show that Bush's tax cuts have been the single largest contributor to the reemergence of substantial budget deficits. Legislation enacted since 2001 has added almost $2.3 trillion to deficits between 2001 and 2006, with half of the deterioration in the budget due to the tax cuts (about a third was due to increases in security spending, and only a sixth to increases in domestic spending).
56.5% of these tax cuts went to the richest 10% of wage earners, those averaging $256,000. Only 14.7% went to the bottom 60% who average $44,000.
Unlike in previous wars, the United States has cut taxes at the same time it has increased military spending."It's fair to say all of the money spent on the war has been borrowed," says Richard Kogan, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank in Washington. "But eventually everything has to be paid for."
And the bill is growing!
Just last week President Bush requested an additional $42.3 billion in “emergency” funding for Iraq and Afghanistan. If passed, the 2008 war bill will be almost $190 billion, the same as the 10 year Farm Bill increase the Journal singled out for criticism and the largest single-year total for these wars. It is an increase of 15 percent from 2007.
It will bring the year end total for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars since Sept. 11, 2001 to $800 billion, still less than half the $2 trillion total projected cost.
As Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen once said about the Defense budget, "a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money"-money that could buy a lot of healthcare, infrastructure, early childhood education or deficit reduction!
What it hasn't bought is protective equipment for our soldiers and their vehicles, the capture of Osama Bin Laden or adequate medical care for our vets!
And remember this $42 billion military increase is off-the-books, "emergency" funding, an addition to the original 2008 spending request, made before the President announced his so-called “new strategy” of partial withdrawal.
Iraq alone has cost the United States more in inflation-adjusted dollars than the Gulf War and the Korean War and will soon pass the Vietnam War.
This for a war that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld promised would cost under $50 billion while his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, predicted Iraqi oil revenues would largely pay for Iraq’s reconstruction.
The $42 billion emergency funding increase is more than the bipartisan, fully funded $35 billion expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) that President Bush has promised to veto.
Since Iraq costs the country $333 million a day, we can't afford to expand SCHIP which costs $19 million a day!
The $42 billion is also almost twice as much as the $23 billion in improvements for waterways and water systems in every state that Bush is threatening to veto as too costly.
Mr Bush took office in 2001, the last time the Government produced a budget surplus. Every year after that the Government has been in the red. In 2004 the deficit swelled to a record $US413 billion ($494 billion).
The Journal is right when it suggests that Mr Bush is mortgaging the country's future. But it is wrong to suggest that entitlements and social spending are to blame.
High end tax cuts and Mr Bush's war of choice in Iraq are the real culprits!
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Olbermann: Iraq and 9/11 finally really are connected - by President Bush
To this day, millions of Americans believe we invaded Iraq because of 9/11.
33 percent still believe there was some interconnection between Saddam Hussein and the nightmares here and in Washington and in Pennsylvania.
Iraq, of course, had nothing to do with 9/11. Then. Six years later, that has changed.
Iraq has distracted us from punishing those responsible for 9/11.
If another 9/11 comes, our focus on Iraq will surely have been central to that nightmare.
How did we get here? What consequences have been paid by those who brought us here?
Keith Olbermann answers these questions and more:
33 percent still believe there was some interconnection between Saddam Hussein and the nightmares here and in Washington and in Pennsylvania.
Iraq, of course, had nothing to do with 9/11. Then. Six years later, that has changed.
Iraq has distracted us from punishing those responsible for 9/11.
If another 9/11 comes, our focus on Iraq will surely have been central to that nightmare.
How did we get here? What consequences have been paid by those who brought us here?
Keith Olbermann answers these questions and more:
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Keith Olbermann: President Bush is playing with the troops!
Yesterday, Keith Olbermann exposed President Bush's trip to Iraq as nothing more than a photo op. Olbermann's entire special comment is posted below as well as his concluding comments.
Just over 500 days remain in this Presidency.
Consider the dead who have piled up on the battlefield.... in these last 500 days.
Consider the singular fraudulence of this President's trip to Iraq yesterday, and the singular fraudulence of the selling of The Petraeus Report... in these last 500 days.
Consider how this President has torn away at the fabric of this nation in a manner of which terrorists can only dream... in these last 500 days.
And consider again how this President has spoken to that biographer: that he is "playing for October-November"… the goal in Iraq is "To get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence"… and consider how this revelation contradicts every other rationale he has offered... in these last 500 days.
In the context of all that… now, consider… these next 500 days.
Mr. Bush, our presence in Iraq must end.
Even if it means your resignation.
Even if it means your impeachment.
Even if it means a different Republican to serve out your term.
Even if it means a Democratic Congress - and those true Patriots among the Republicans - standing up and denying you another **penny** for Iraq, other than for the safety and the safe conduct home of our troops.
This country cannot run the risk of what you can still do to this country... in the next 500 days…
Not while you, Sir... are playing.
Good night, and good luck.
Just over 500 days remain in this Presidency.
Consider the dead who have piled up on the battlefield.... in these last 500 days.
Consider the singular fraudulence of this President's trip to Iraq yesterday, and the singular fraudulence of the selling of The Petraeus Report... in these last 500 days.
Consider how this President has torn away at the fabric of this nation in a manner of which terrorists can only dream... in these last 500 days.
And consider again how this President has spoken to that biographer: that he is "playing for October-November"… the goal in Iraq is "To get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence"… and consider how this revelation contradicts every other rationale he has offered... in these last 500 days.
In the context of all that… now, consider… these next 500 days.
Mr. Bush, our presence in Iraq must end.
Even if it means your resignation.
Even if it means your impeachment.
Even if it means a different Republican to serve out your term.
Even if it means a Democratic Congress - and those true Patriots among the Republicans - standing up and denying you another **penny** for Iraq, other than for the safety and the safe conduct home of our troops.
This country cannot run the risk of what you can still do to this country... in the next 500 days…
Not while you, Sir... are playing.
Good night, and good luck.
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