Bush is hoping for a boost since his approval rating is a lower percentage of the population than those who believe in Alien Abductions and he may get it. Even though he’s been just plain wrong in all his predictions, some people still believe him, such is the power of faith.
Here are my predictions:
He will show us GDP figures and call it solid growth, even though last quarter’s numbers surprised even the pessimists. He will credit his tax cuts for that growth and insist that they be made permanent. He will again compare the tribulations of the Iraqi government to those experienced by the young United States in the late 18th century. He will tell us that his station as commander in chief allows him to bypass the constitution and that it is necessary to keep spying on anyone expressing dissatisfaction with his pet war because we are all in such grave danger. We will hear about strong job growth and low unemployment figures. Nothing surprising, in other words.
Gene Sperling, a columnist for Bloomberg News and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress writes today about what you will not hear.
That the main reason unemployment is low is that a smaller share of the population is working or looking for work than when Bush took office. If this weren't the case, the unemployment rate would be 6.6 percent to 7.2 percent
That level of job growth is 2.5 million jobs below the average 2 1/2-year period under the Clinton Administration, and more significantly represents less than half the average rate of job growth in the similar periods of economic recoveries.
That the mere 62,000 private sector jobs generated a month in the Bush recovery represents the worst job recovery on record.
That both family and household incomes have fallen and poverty has risen every year under this administration, according to the annual census report on income and poverty.
Of course since the man once worked for Clinton, all this can be readily dismissed by the remaining 37% who support Bush, by reciting the mystic formula “Michael Moore – Ted Kennedy – Canadian health care system.” But those Democrats, like Sperling and like me, who see the situation as more complex than can be explained only by Bush’s profligate spending and borrowing will none the less be nauseated by those fiscal policies that have mortgaged the future and led to what he calls “the worst fiscal deterioration in our nation's history. “
1 comment:
Don't you know we can go on forever borrowing money from the Chinese? And when that runs out we can just go to a faith-based economy.
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