George Bush and the US Economy

[John Simkin]

One reason George Bush should be removed from office is his appalling record on the economy.

(1) This is the first time since the early 1930s that there has been a net loss of jobs over the span of a presidential administration.

(2) Clinton left a huge budget surplus (2% of GDP). Bush has converted this into a deficit of 5%.

(3) The average American family is worse off than three and a half years ago. Median income has fallen by over $1,500 in real terms.

(4) 45 million Americans have no health insurance (up by 5.2 million since 2000).

(5) National debt has risen sharply under Bush. This has forced Bush to borrow almost $2bn a day from abroad.

As a result ten American Nobel prize winners in economics have sent an open letter to the public.

“President Bush and his administration have embarked on a reckless and extreme course that endangers the long-term economic health of our nation ... The differences between President Bush and John Kerry with respect to leadership on the economy are wider than in any other presidential election in our experience. President Bush believes that tax cuts benefiting the most wealthy Americans are the answer to almost every economic problem."

[Raymond Blair]

Their is something sinister about the intersection of our national politics and our tax policy.

Politicians must stand for tax cuts and for adding programs. It seems to appeal so strongly to the American belief in the win-win scenario.

Although the Bush administration claims to have a plan to improve the American economy, it is designed to help capital and it operates directly at the expense of the working class. 80% of Americans pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes.

After the election the majority of Bush's economic "stimulus" plan will kick in and these will be the programs that provide tax benefits for the top .5% of Americans. Yet in the previous thirty years, while the bottom 95% percent of Americans (research David Cay Johnston for this) have experienced a negligible growth in their real income, the top .5% percent has grown tremendously.

It frightens me how many parallels our econmy shows to the economy of the 1920s.

Somehow, Bush's opposition can't make a strong advantage out of the fact that present policy will strongly tax the next generation both with debt and with already spent Social Security surplus that will be needed after 2008 as the baby boom explodes into the system of retirement benefits.

Here is a quote from those 10 nobel prize winners

Increased borrowing from abroad – now almost five percent of our GDP – leaves our country, our economy and global stability increasingly vulnerable to changes in sentiments of foreign, or even domestic, investors. At the same time, his policies have exacerbated income inequality, failed to address the real wage declines and rising health care costs beleaguering American families, and ignored the need for critical investments to spur long-term growth.

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Edited October 6, 2004 by Raymond Blair