An economic record only Bush could be proud of

Following up on the last item for a moment, there was one other part of Bush’s speech to CPAC that warranted special attention.

“When I took office, we inherited a recession — and then we acted. We were guided by this principle: the best way to help our economy grow is to leave money in the hands of those responsible for our prosperity. That, of course, would be the American people. And so with your support, we passed one of the largest tax cuts in American history — and then we cut taxes again. In all, we delivered nearly $2 trillion in tax relief over the past seven years. Our critics wanted a different approach. They believed that the best way to keep the economy — to help the economy was to keep taxes in Washington and expand the size and scope of the federal government…. Despite these dire predictions, the tax cuts we passed contributed to a record 52 months of job creation. They helped produce strong economic growth — and the increased revenues from that growth have put us on track to a balance our budget by 2012. Here is the bottom line: tax relief works.”

Now, I suspect I’m easily dismissed by Bush and his allies as part of the reality-based community, but I tend to think of the president’s economic record as something of a disaster. Anytime Bush wants to list his accomplishments in office, it must be a difficult challenge, but given the state of the economy, this looks like a topic to be avoided.

But not this guy; he wants to brag about his economic record, using some of the silliest arguments imaginable.



Let’s take these quickly, one at a time.

* “When I took office, we inherited a recession.” That’s demonstrably false.

* “Despite these dire predictions, the tax cuts we passed contributed to a record 52 months of job creation.” First, the 52-month streak ended last month. Second, Bush has only added, on average, 369,000 private-sector jobs per year over the course of his presidency (nearly one-fifth the total under Clinton, who raised taxes).

* “[Tax cuts] helped produce strong economic growth.” Unfortunately, “strong” is a subjective word. In reality, Bush has produced the worst GDP growth of any president of the last 50 years.

* “[I]increased revenues from that growth have put us on track to a balance our budget by 2012.” First, we’re nowhere near “on track” to balance the budget by 2012; Bush’s own OMB projects deficits of over $400 billion in each of the next two years. Second, the increased-revenue argument sounds an awful lot like the ridiculous “tax fairy” nonsense Republicans are so fond of.

* “Here is the bottom line: tax relief works.” Works for whom?

The irony is, Bush not only screwed up every possible facet of the nation’s fiscal and economic health, he was wrong in all of his predictions. He assured the nation that if he got his tax cuts through, he could balance the budget, match (if not, exceed) Clinton’s record on job growth, match (if not, exceed) Clinton’s record on GDP growth, reduce poverty, and watch the stock market soar.

All of those predictions weren’t just mistakes, the opposite came to fruition. Every number that was supposed to go down went up, and the numbers that were supposed to go up went down. It’s not even a matter of opinion — the guarantees of 2001 and 2003 were simply wrong. The benefits of Bush’s policies never materialized.

Mr. President, you might want to find something different to brag about. This record is humiliating.