"It sounds like something from Sesame Street." I don't remember if those were his exact words, but that's basically what Bush said in the 2000 presidential campaign, about Al Gore's proposed ideas regarding the budget surplus. We all remember that Al Gore wanted to use the surplus to shore up Social Security. We all remember the subsequent jokes about "lock boxes" too. Bush claimed that Gore's numbers were way off base and apparently a lot of Americans believed him. I'm not sure why they believed him, but they did.
Bush sold Americans the idea of returning the surplus to the American people in the form of a tax cut. Any idiot with half a brain saw right through that one. It was obvious the tax cut was going to go to the wealthy. Apparently half the people in this country have less than half a brain though, because they voted for Moron Boy.
Whenever you give a tax cut in one place the slack has to be picked up somewhere else. So I immediately figured that the burden would fall on the working class. Oh sure, they threw a few crumbs to the middle and lower classes! Though speaking for my family at least, money got tighter so those few extra tax crumbs didn't go toward extra purchases (and stimulating the economy), but rather paying the bills.
The bottom line is I knew Bush spelled bad news for the economy. Through his first 4 years the main thing keeping the economy afloat was the housing boom. But even that worried me. Because I knew the housing boom could only keep the country going for a limited time. Eventually it was bound to burst. I know many people who had stupidly insisted the housing bubble would not burst. They honestly believed property values would just indefinitely keep increasing!
I remember one conversation I had with a self described conservative. This person made a large chunk of her income from property investments. She told me, "If you really knew how the economy worked you could only be a Republican." I hate it when conservatives say that. It's so incredibly condescending and it reeks of hubris. Yet I somehow understood a very basic principle better than she did. What goes up must come down. The housing bubble has since burst. All those "exotic" loans are going south and it's killing the economy.
Incidentally, said conservative bought her home on a 40 year loan at the peak of the housing boom. She's in her 40's and she took out a 40 year loan. The way property values have plummeted, there is no way her home is worth what it was when she bought it. Yeah, that was a great investment!
But something else occurred to me today about Bush's tax cuts. He's very quick to spend on the war-money we don't have-but he wants to cut funding for domestic programs. Which means less money is being pumped into the economy. When you cut funding for domestic programs you cut jobs. Oh yeah-and this week he vetoed a bill that would have expanded health coverage for poor and middle class children. My kiddo probably would have been covered under the vetoed plan. We're strained to the max and that health plan would have been a big help for us.
My final economic gripe is on Reaganomics or more specifically "trickle down economics". The theory is if taxes are cut on higher incomes and business activity it will stimulate the economy and everyone will benefit. In reality it's never worked that way. The only ones who really benefit from it are the ones who receive the tax cuts. I admit I'm not an economic expert, but it seems to me that if the lower and middle classes have money to spend they will buy things and the wealth will automatically end up accumulating at the top-with the wealthy. Bush is obviously a fan of trickle down economics.
Put it all together and our economy is totally fucked up for the time being. Thanks Moron Boy-um, excuse me...Mr. Bush!
No comments:
Post a Comment