A 10/8/03 business report by Jennifer Loven of the Associated
Press quotes Bush recently after a meeting with his cabinet at the White House:
“The Congress needs to join with administration to pass good law so that
the American people can find work.” Loven then added “Bush also stated
as he often does that his administration ‘inherited’ an economic recession
from former President Clinton-even though the downturn began in March 2001,
two months after Bush took office. The recession ended that November, according
to a panel academic economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research which
has the job of tracking dates.”
Bush’s solution, cut health-care costs by reducing medical liability lawsuits, decreasing class action lawsuits, increasing domestic energy surplus, and making his recently-passed tax cuts permanent. The sheer irony of the article is the “Dilbert” comic strip just at the bottom left of Loven’s report, there we see Scott Adam’s be-speckled office hero mapping out a much more appealing business plan in a meeting. Dilbert’s plan shows profitability by year 3; a picture displayed on a stand showing nothing more than an arrow pointing up. Now I ask you, why couldn’t George W just gave his speech writer the day off and done the same?
What hurts Bush the most is that since he took office, 2.6 million jobs were lost. This according to reports a month later in the 10/31/03 USA Today. These reports show how the US economy grew 7.2% in the recent quarter ending in September, and this was the biggest gain since 1984. While this growth provides less than a band-aid to American workers, the administration sees it as a positive sign for the campaigning season. During the fall of ’84 Ronald Reagan won a 2nd term over the democrat Walter Mondale. Democrats today are not impressed. They’re not looking back 19 years, they’re looking back to the early 1900’s: “Bush has compiled the worst economic record since the great depression, and it is going to take a lot more than one quarter of growth to clean it up,” said former Vermont Governor Howard Dean.
The report says that Bush is using this rapid growth as justification for his tax cuts. Many taxpayers are wondering what Bush is using for his justification of allocating $87 billion toward the building of Iraq while many inner city communities and businesses right here in the US need rebuilding. How exactly is this money going to be allocated? A 11/03/03 Newsweek special investigation issue shows the bulk of that $87 going toward military costs ($65 billion), with $17 billion earmarked under such abstract categories as personal costs, $5.4 billion for procurement, procurement of what? $360 million listed under “other.” That’s a lot of money to not have a specific use. Only $20 billion will go toward reconstruction, which tells you that the US is putting more priority in staying in Iraq rather than actually improving it.
While the contract to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure went to Bechtel, they are reported to have sub-contracted out 102 of its 140 firms to Iraqi companies. Very little of their $1 billion will actually go toward Iraqi interest. Expect the same with Bush’s $87 billion. This is the same guy who doesn’t like class action lawsuits. What’s he think of the White House being surrounded by pickup trucks? It’s still the economy…