Largest Tax Increase In History!

[molson_golden2002]

In job growth! Bush's 'pro-growth' policies sure grew the national debt! Seriously though, I think oil prices affct the economy more than taxes do, but whatever

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/08/bus...t.ap/index.html

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The economy has cranked out fewer jobs under President Bush -- by millions -- than it had by the same point in the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

 

Democrats say it's evidence that Bush's economic policies aren't working.

 

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez counters, in an interview, "It's just a matter of timing and when we started getting out of the recession that the president inherited."

 

Economists suggest something fundamentally different also may be going on in the economy: The labor force of available workers is growing more slowly as the baby boom generation ages.

 

Under Bush, the economy produced 3.7 million new jobs from January 2001 through December of last year based on nonfarm payroll figures collected by the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

 

That figure is likely to be higher -- perhaps by an additional 810,000 -- when the government releases annual revisions based on more complete information next month. However, that doesn't change the basic historical picture.

 

When Clinton was in the White House, the economy generated 17.6 million jobs during the corresponding period -- from January 1993 to December 1998. Under Reagan, 9.5 million jobs were created from January 1981 to December 1986.

 

Those are the two most-recent two-term presidents before Bush. Some 2.6 million jobs were created during the four-year term of Bush's father, who took office in January 1989.

 

Reagan had two recessions -- one of which began in July 1981 and ended in November 1982. It was the most severe recession since the Great Depression, pushing the monthly unemployment rate as high as 10.8 percent.

 

Terms marked by economic challenges

Bush, too, has had his economic challenges. He had the 2001 recession and that year's terror attack. And, Gutierrez noted, Bush faced lingering fallout from the bursting of the stock market bubble in 2000. He also was confronted with a wave of corporate accounting scandals that rocked Wall Street -- and with Iraq war beginning in 2003.

 

The economy lost jobs in 2001 and 2002. Since then jobs have been growing each year -- including 2006, when the economy was hit by the real-estate bust.

 

Those jolts did affect jobs on Bush's watch, economists say. Yet they see deeper reasons for slower job growth, too.

 

"The principal reason is that the labor force has grown much more slowly during the president's term than under the presidencies of Clinton and Reagan and that has nothing to do with anything but demographics," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.

 

Baby boomers -- a huge block of workers -- poured into the work force in the 1980s and were rising through the ranks in the 1990s. That's not the case now as boomers face retirement, and there are fewer young people to take their places.

 

Women, meanwhile, who helped to bulk up the labor force over the past few decades, aren't streaming into jobs as they once did.

 

These changing demographic factors will shape the country's future.

 

"The impending retirement of the baby boomers and the fact that women are no longer increasing their participation in the labor force at the rate they were in the past will tend to restrain the future growth of the U.S. labor force," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a major speech on the economy's outlook in late November.

 

Earlier in the decade, most economists estimated that monthly job growth of about 150,000 was consistent with the economy growing close to its potential. Now research suggests monthly increases of roughly 100,000 jobs, says Michael Moskow, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

 

Democrats, who took control of Congress last Thursday for the first time in a dozen years, say Bush's trade and other economic policies have contributed to the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs and to the slower job creation.

 

They also argue that the poor haven't reaped benefits of the country's economic expansion.

 

"It has generally been an accepted fact that economic growth is a good thing and that the rising tide will lift all boats," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts. "The 'rising tide lifts all boats' has always been a problem. If you think about that analogy, the rising tide is a very good idea if you have a boat. But if you are too poor to afford a boat and you are standing tiptoe in water, the rising tide goes up your nose. And so that's a mistake," he said.

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California wants the House to approve legislation this week boosting the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour. Supporters say the move will help the working poor. Critics say it could force companies to cut jobs.

[Alaska Darin]

Nothing better than politicians taking credit for essentially doing nothing. The best thing that happened for Mr. Clinton was the fact that the Democratic Congress couldn't organize themselves to pass anything they got elected for (and that Rubin's ridiculous "BTU Tax" was killed before it got off the grount).

 

Once the Republicans finally took over Congress, we had beautiful, sweet gridlock - ensuring American ingenuity could prosper in the private sector.

 

Most of that article is utter BS, not that this Administration has done much right.

[yall]

And let's not forget that during the Clinton presidency, tech jobs were being created like McGahee babies. Not so much due to his policies as it was timing.

[SilverNRed]

Unemployment is at 4.5%, actually lower than it was when we apparently lived in a Utopia (you know, when Clinton was president).

 

What's the problem again?

 

Oh, that's right, you just wanted to start your daily "I have Bush" thread.

[Chilly]

Oh, that's right, you just wanted to start your daily "I have Bush" thread.

 

He is not talking about his pubes.

[justnzane]

Unemployment is at 4.5%, actually lower than it was when we apparently lived in a Utopia (you know, when Clinton was president).

 

What's the problem again?

 

Oh, that's right, you just wanted to start your daily "I have Bush" thread.

ok but inflation adjusted income is not that of when clinton was in office and that is the discrepency in attitude of the health of our workforce

[/dev/null]

"I have Bush" thread.

 

Look on the bright side, at least it's not like the 70. That was some serious BushBad!!!

[Alaska Darin]

ok but inflation adjusted income is not that of when clinton was in office and that is the discrepency in attitude of the health of our workforce

Poor GWB, he wasn't lucky enough to take office and have virtually every star (flat energy prices, the internet revolution, birth of the new investor class, etc) line up for him. Let's keep giving Mr. Clinton credit for stuff that politicians had almost nothing to do with.

[SilverNRed]

He is not talking about his pubes.

 

Look on the bright side, at least it's not like the 70. That was some serious BushBad!!!

 

Damn typos.

[justnzane]

Poor GWB, he wasn't lucky enough to take office and have virtually every star (flat energy prices, the internet revolution, birth of the new investor class, etc) line up for him. Let's keep giving Mr. Clinton credit for stuff that politicians had almost nothing to do with.

 

I'll have to disagree with you here, as the presidents policies and effectiveness do have some impact on the economy. Yet, I do recognize that congress has more impact in general than the president does in regards to the economic growth and development. However, I was simply stating that the economy is still not to the level of where it was 10-15 years ago. I was trying to keep it as non-partisan and non-political as possible (kinda hard to do on a PPP board).

[Alaska Darin]

I'll have to disagree with you here, as the presidents policies and effectiveness do have some impact on the economy. Yet, I do recognize that congress has more impact in general than the president does in regards to the economic growth and development. However, I was simply stating that the economy is still not to the level of where it was 10-15 years ago. I was trying to keep it as non-partisan and non-political as possible (kinda hard to do on a PPP board).

So which policies did Mr. Clinton or his Congress enact that spurred the information age or flattened global energy prices for all but the last six months of his term? This should be good.

[Orton's Arm]

I'll have to disagree with you here, as the presidents policies and effectiveness do have some impact on the economy. Yet, I do recognize that congress has more impact in general than the president does in regards to the economic growth and development. However, I was simply stating that the economy is still not to the level of where it was 10-15 years ago. I was trying to keep it as non-partisan and non-political as possible (kinda hard to do on a PPP board).

As Darin's been hinting, economic cycles are largely caused by things outside the government's control. There are also a lot of times when government involvement today creates a benefit tomorrow. For example, the 1957 launch of Sputnik inspired the United States government to create the Advanced Research projects Agency (ARPA) with an eye toward improving computers as they related to command and control. During the 1960s and early '70s, ARPA decided to prepare for a nuclear war. Computers were networked together in such a way that even if a nuclear war took out several network nodes, communication would still be possible among the rest. By 1971, the ARPANET was up and running. Later on, people at universities began using the ARPANET to send emails to each other. As more and more people began using this network, it became known as the Internet. The World Wide Web is a layer on top of the Internet.

 

When Clinton was president, the economy received a strong push from Internet-related businesses. Not only did you have the dot-coms, but you had companies like IBM, Sun Microsystems, and HP sell increasingly large numbers of servers to anyone who needed to host a website. Cisco benefited by selling routers, switches, hubs, and other networking gear; Intel and Microsoft benefited from Internet-inspired increases in global computer sales. Little if any of this tech sector boom was caused by anything Clinton did.

 

The main thing the government did well during the Clinton era was to keep the federal deficit low; which in turn helps to lower long-term interest rates. Lower interest rates mean that it's easier for companies to borrow money to buy things like servers and routers. But if the government kept the deficit low, it was because of some federal spending discipline. Which, by the way, Newt Gingrich and the Republican House were directly responsible for instituting.

[justnzane]

So which policies did Mr. Clinton or his Congress enact that spurred the information age or flattened global energy prices for all but the last six months of his term? This should be good.

Well, you do have me here. I do admit that Clinton came by some luck and Bush has had some misfortune, especially in those two specific topics. But I can point to Congress during Clinton's term passing the digital millenium copyright act, which has spawned big time industry of online music stores by criminalizing illegal file sharing. You can also point to the omnibus budget reconciliation act, where small businesses and poor people received tax breaks. Finally, you can point to the welfare reform that Clinton was a huge proponent of, this led to a bunch of the unmerited dead weight on the system being forced into the workforce, rather than collecting free money.

 

I will reiterate that the Presidents role is not as vital as House and Senate in economic development

 

EDIT: i tried posting but I lost my connection

[justnzane]

As Darin's been hinting, economic cycles are largely caused by things outside the government's control. There are also a lot of times when government involvement today creates a benefit tomorrow. For example, the 1957 launch of Sputnik inspired the United States government to create the Advanced Research projects Agency (ARPA) with an eye toward improving computers as they related to command and control. During the 1960s and early '70s, ARPA decided to prepare for a nuclear war. Computers were networked together in such a way that even if a nuclear war took out several network nodes, communication would still be possible among the rest. By 1971, the ARPANET was up and running. Later on, people at universities began using the ARPANET to send emails to each other. As more and more people began using this network, it became known as the Internet. The World Wide Web is a layer on top of the Internet.

 

When Clinton was president, the economy received a strong push from Internet-related businesses. Not only did you have the dot-coms, but you had companies like IBM, Sun Microsystems, and HP sell increasingly large numbers of servers to anyone who needed to host a website. Cisco benefited by selling routers, switches, hubs, and other networking gear; Intel and Microsoft benefited from Internet-inspired increases in global computer sales. Little if any of this tech sector boom was caused by anything Clinton did.

 

The main thing the government did well during the Clinton era was to keep the federal deficit low; which in turn helps to lower long-term interest rates. Lower interest rates mean that it's easier for companies to borrow money to buy things like servers and routers. But if the government kept the deficit low, it was because of some federal spending discipline. Which, by the way, Newt Gingrich and the Republican House were directly responsible for instituting.

 

H_A for as much as I rip on ya. I am in total agreement there. I consider myself economically conservative, and the Republican House and Senate showed a lot of discipline along w/ the Clinton administration during the '90s. Unfortunately, the same can't be said since Bush has been in office, which can be blamed on both Congress and Bush.