Bush tax cuts DO create jobs

[DKW 86 7,433]

Btw, the 460 economists out of the tens of thousands of economists in the world is just pitiful. I could find a small percentage of any group that will support anything, no matter how silly.

The academics in any profession are often the knee jerk whackos of the feild anyway. College is good, but real life is often very different from the theoretical world. As they say, those that can, do, those that can't, teach.

[Jenny AU-92 0]

Just my two cents worth:

The unemployment rate right now is 6%. This is lower than the average for: Clinton over his first three years (6.23%), George H.W. Bush’s single term (6.28%), Reagan’s 2nd term (6.48%), Carter’s single term (6.56%), Ford/Nixon (6.64%), and Reagan’s 1st term (8.58%).  The current rate of unemployment is, in fact, lower than the average rate of unemployment for the past 30 years.

[TitanTiger 20,506]

The International Mass Retail Association

"After the last recession ended in March  1991, unemployment climbed for 15 months, to 7.8 percent from  6.8 percent."

Again, what responsible source would declare a recession over when unemployment is still climbing?

Um. Allow me to define "recession" for you. A recession has occured when there has been 2 or more consecutive quarters of declining GDP. This is the standard definition agreed upon by economists worldwide. So to answer your question: EVERY responsible source would declare a recession over when GDP is no longer declining, regardless of unemployment numbers.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

"In some respects, the weak labor market resembles the jobless recovery that followed the 1990-91 recession. Then, payroll employment did not surpass its June 1990 peak until 32 months later (February 1993), 23 months after the recession's end in March 1991."

I could go on but the point is, this notion that the recession of 1990-91 ended 21 months before Clinton took office in Jan. 1993 is apparently news only to you. 

Well, to me and the millions still losing their jobs.

No, to you and anyone else who doesn't understand beans about economics.

2. Which Clinton policy caused the dot-com boom?

Technology drove the dot.com boom. Build a beter mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. The technology boom cannot be attributed to ANY economic policy.

The dot-com boom is what fueled the late 1990's economic boom.  Investment in the stock market was sky high which floods companies with money.  Subsequently hiring will be up as well.  Just glad we're clear that Clinton was presiding over an economy that was growing through no real policy of his own rather than being responsible for it.

He was wise enough to use the added revenue to reverse the budget deficit and start paying on the debt. Here's a few quick questions for you. What percent of the annual budget deficit goes to interest on the debt? Who pays that interest. If we were to eliminate that debt and the interest that goes with it, how much more money do you think we'd have to secure Social Security, fix our highways, schools, etc., Can you imagine the tax cuts we could get (without breaking the bank) if we eliminated the national debt and it's budget crippling interest.

Well, this is actually a raging debate...whether debt is good or bad, how fast or how far you want to pay it down, etc. Here is a cached article from ABC News (via Google) that gives some insight on the pros and cons:

Debt Reduction: Good or Bad

3. Which G.W. Bush policy caused the economy to go into recession less than 2 months after he took office?

Trickledown economics (decreasing revenue without decreasing spending) which created a double-headed economic problem; spiraling budget deficits and a spiraling national debt. Our nation was swimming in debt from the Republican policies of Reagan-Bush and consumer confidence hit an all-time low. People stop spending and the economy tanks. (see Bush II)

Wrong again.  G.W. Bush took office January 20, 2001.  Not one of his policies had taken effect by the time the recession began in March 2001.

Consumer confidence. Tax cuts that would essentially reverse the eight years of fiscal responsibility spooked enough people into hoarding their monies instead of spending it.

Malarky. Tax cuts don't "spook" people into hoarding money. That has to be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. What spooks people into not spending and hanging on to their money for a rainy day is an economy that is in a downturn or a full-blown recession. It causes them to fear losing their jobs which in turn makes them more cautious about unneeded expenditures.

4. On whom would you pin the responsibility for the dot-com bust that started the economic slowdown in mid-2000?

Well, that would be assuming that the dot.com bust was the cause of the recession or an end product of irresponsible economic policies. I tend to lean more to the irresponsible economic policies.

The recession didn't start until March 2001.  The dot-com bubble began to burst in late 1999-early 2000...way before the recession began, much less any so-called "irresponsible economic policies".  That is unless, you're tagging Clinton with implementing irresponsible economic policies in late 1999 that caused the economic slowdown.

No. Irresponsible economic policies are spending beyond your means. As a consumer, that can lead to bankruptcy. As a nation, that can lead to crippling debts that create a huge budget problem with interest that has to be paid on that debt annually before any other budget item is even brought before the Congress.

Well, since the downturn started almost a year before Bush took office, and none of his fiscal policies had been implemented by March of 2001 (when the recession was declared), I guess Clinton was allowing spending that was beyond our means? Is that what you're saying?

5. What president do you think could have done a lot better than Bush with an economy that officially went into recession less than 2 months into his term, then got waylaid 18 months later by the terrorist attacks of 9-11-2001?

Clinton. He inherited  the last Bush recession, with it's multi-trillion dollar debt and 1/3 billion dollar deficits and brought us into our most prosperous times, reversing the budget deficit and making payments on the debt. BTW, do you remember the reasoning behind the first George W. Bush tax cut? It was because we had a budget surplus and he felt he needed to give the money back to his rich friends, NOT because there was a recession. The last two tax cuts were to "spur the economy and help us create jobs."

Well, that seems to conflict with your assessment, and the evidence I provided on the timeline of events, of what caused the dot-com bust and the subsequent economic slowdown.  Bush II couldn't have caused the slowdown since he wasn't in office at the time and wasn't in long enough to affect anything by the time it because a full blown recession a month and a half into his term.

My bet:  there isn't a president in history that could have been handed an economy headed for recession coupled with the terrorist attacks of 9-11 that would have done any better.

As I stated before, lack of consumer confidence can and does spur recessions. People slow their spending down and companies start laying off people. People start getting laidoff and it spooks more people into saving instead of spending.

I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but Bush didn't cause the slowdown or the recession. He either wasn't in office (for the downturn's beginning) or hadn't passed any fiscal policies (the recession of 2001's beginning) to have caused it. So you're either saying that some mystifying event spontaneously caused consumer confidence to drop in late '99-early 2000, culminating in the recession that hit in March '01, or someone's fiscal policies caused consumer confidence to drop. If the latter is the case, your finger should be pointed at Mr. Clinton.

Am I speaking ancient Hebrew or something? Why aren't you answering the questions asked?

Maybe it's because this is the first time you've actually posed the questions instead of expecting me to read your mind on what the questions were.

Are you blind or something?  I posted the following questions on another thread, then reposted them on this one as the ninth message on the first page:

No. I'm not blind, but thanks for caring. I just have really crappy eye sight. It only gets worse with age. I must have missed the other questions that you posed and I hope you'll forgive me. Maybe now that I have answered these questions, we can forgive and forget. I'll try not to let it happen again.

Ok. I just figured since you were answering all the other questions and posting so many articles that your eyesight was fine and you were just seeing what you wanted to see. Consider the subject dropped.

Convenient how you magically attribute each situation to the person in office.  What exactly did Clinton do to get the economy officially out of a recession a full 21 months before he took office?  And which of the numerous dot-com startups that fueled the stock market boom of the late 90s did he own?

Gee, isn't that the Republican gameplan that first started in the eighties? Blame everything that happened badly in the economy on Carter, even though OPEC price gouging forced the recession in his term of office. Republicans even tried to blame the budget deficits and spiraling debt on Senate Democrats when Reagan's policies failed. The same policies are failing today with Republicans controlling everything and now, if we say there's not a problem enough times, we just might convince someone that they can't believe their lying eyes.

I think it probably started way before the 1980s. Every person running for President has used a bad economy against the incumbent when the opportunity was there. But neither of us are running for President, so we ought to cut through the spin and look at facts.

And one other thing, even your Carter example doesn't hold. The economy wasn't improving under Carter and Reagan just benefitted from it. It still stunk when Reagan came in and had fallen into a full recession less than 5 months after Reagan took office. It took another couple of years before the economy got going again. By the time the election of 1984 rolled around, the economy was rolling so strong, Reagan routed Mondale in an electoral college landslide (winning every state but Mondale's home state of Minnesota). On the other hand, Clinton inherited an economy already on the rise (after the shortest recession in US history) while Bush II inherited one that was falling. That fall was exacerbated by the terrorist attacks.

The only thing I will agree with you on is the problem of increasing spending as revenues fall. I will say that the last couple of years were unique in situation, but it's not something that should continue. But regarding the Reagan vs Congressional Democrats and the situation we have now: revenues, spurred by tax cuts that fueled economic growth, INCREASED during Reagan's tenure. It wasn't a situation of spending more while taking in less. The Democrats, who controlled both houses of Congress, managed to spend MORE than could even be accounted for by the increased revenues.

[Tiger Al 0]

Just my two cents worth:

The unemployment rate right now is 6%. This is lower than the average for: Clinton over his first three years (6.23%), George H.W. Bush’s single term (6.28%), Reagan’s 2nd term (6.48%), Carter’s single term (6.56%), Ford/Nixon (6.64%), and Reagan’s 1st term (8.58%).  The current rate of unemployment is, in fact, lower than the average rate of unemployment for the past 30 years.

Jenny, this proves the saying, "There are lies, there are damn lies and then there are statistics."

When Reagan took office in January of 1981 the unemployment rate was 7.5% and when he left it was 5.3%, with a nice run of 10+% for almost a year, peaking at 10.8% in December of 1982. That was trickle down at its' finest!!!

When daddy Bush came in, the rate was 5.4% and it was 7.3% when he left.

When Clinton took office in January of 1993 the unemployment rate was 7.3% and it was 3.9% in December 2000. From May of 1997 until he left office, it was never higher than 5%. When Dubya took office in January of 2001, the rate was 4.1%.