Friday, December 21, 2007

The Economy Under George W. Bush

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. - Sources: Vanity Fair and Bill Baer (for adding bold to the text)

The taxes aren't high enough on the wealthy, oh no! A part of me says "they earned it" and a part of me says "big business is corrupt." A flat tax for the middle class just may be the right solution. What about the people making > $1 million? I hope they are philanthropists.

7 comments:

  1. The falling economy is not Bush's fault entirely. Reagan brought the economy back up, then spent our treasury to take down the Soviet Union. Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II, however, have not done much to try to improve upon the situation and have added to the deficit...

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  2. True, Reagan and H.W. Bush contributed to national debt, but Clinton actually lowered it. He also created thousands more jobs than either of the Bushes or Reagan. Also, for the first time since the '70's, the Canadian dollar was worth more than the American dollar this year. Not to mention every other currency has been gaining on us. Bush has a lot to do with the problem in that he's not doing anything to try and fix it, either.

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  3. Clinton also sold nuclear information to the Chinese and boned a chick on an airplane. He was not a very good president. The reason why there was less of a deficit during Clinton's time in office was because there was no war to be fought. With Reagan, he was making sure that the Soviets fell and poured much money into that. Bush I was fixing up Carter's mistake of putting Saddam in power, but failed at that (but still protected Kuwait). Now, Bush II had to deal with the Taliban, which was successfully taken down, but then went further by finishing Daddy's job in Iraq. So the deficit during the Republican's office was from war...Clinton didn't have that.

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  4. "Bush I was fixing up Carter's mistake of putting Saddam in power, but failed at that (but still protected Kuwait). Now, Bush II had to deal with the Taliban, which was successfully taken down, but then went further by finishing Daddy's job in Iraq."

    B.S. The war was not to free the poor Iraqis and take down Hussein, it's a totally selfish war for more power, which we never needed to start. You're clearly biased by propaganda. Clinton was one of the best presidents for a while simply because he knew it was useless to start a war and wasn't stupid enough to do it. Who cares about his personal life; it has nothing to do with how he ran the country. You can't deny that he did much better with the economy than HW, GW , or Regan. End of story.

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  5. Duh, I know that. Bush I's job was to secure his oil. Bush II was finishing daddy's job...

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. "Furthermore, war is sometimes necessary to show these pricks who is in charge"

    You are starting to make me ill, Mogni.

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