http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040210/ap_on_el_pr/bush&cid=694&ncid=716 By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - His voice rising to a shout, President Bush (news - web sites) lashed out at Democratic rivals who want to roll back his tax cuts as he defended his economic priorities Monday in a presidential primary state where his record has been harshly criticized. "There are some in Washington that are going to say, 'Let's not make the tax cuts permanent.' That means he's going to raise your taxes," Bush said at a factory. "When you hear people say, 'We're not going to make this permanent,' that means tax increase." The Democrats running for president say they would repeal all or portions of Bush's tax cuts, and Bush seemed to step more forcefully into his re-election campaign as he defended his tax policies. Some of the cuts are to expire next year, including those for married couples, and Bush is asking that Congress make them permanent. It was Bush's 15th trip to Missouri and another case of the president appearing in a state recently visited by Democratic presidential hopefuls. He went to South Carolina on Feb. 5, two days after that state's Democratic primary; in late January, he visited New Hampshire, two days after its primary. Missouri's primary was last Tuesday. The visit coincided with the release of a White House report predicting that the economy would grow by 4 percent and create 2.6 million new jobs this year. If the jobs forecast is realized, it would mark the first year of the Bush presidency with a net increase in jobs. Since he took office, the country has lost 2.2 million payroll jobs. On the campaign stump, Democratic Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) said Bush had the worst jobs record of the last 11 presidents. The rosy view of the economy presented in the new report was probably "prepared by the same people who brought us the intelligence on Iraq (news - web sites)," Kerry said. In addition to his appearance at a factory, Bush spent some time at the Bass Pro Shops sporting goods store where he shopped for fishing gear. "Which way to the worms?" Bush asked as he shook hands with several hundred shoppers. As the president left, he rattled off his purchases: "I bought a reel. Some line. Two spinner baits. Some worms." In his speech, Bush sought to confront criticism that his tax cuts have widened the budget deficit. The liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that making all Bush's tax cuts permanent would increase federal budget deficits by about $2 trillion between 2005 and 2014. "Let me tell you what's going to happen when they raise them," Bush said. "They're going to say, 'Oh, we got to raise it so we can pay down the deficit. Uh-uh. They're going to raise the taxes and increase the size of the federal government, which would be bad for the United States economy." Bush narrowly won Missouri in 2000 and his repeat visits demonstrate his resolve to carry it again. Several hundred supporters filled part of the warehouse at Springfield Remanufacturing Corp., an employee-owned company that rebuilds diesel and gasoline engines and engine components for cars and agricultural and construction equipment. Sitting next to Bush was Jack Stack, the president of SRC, the holding company of the factory Bush was visiting. Stack gave $2,000 last year to the presidential campaign of Democrat Dick Gephardt (news - web sites), a fellow Missourian. Stack has given to an array of state and national political causes, most of them Democrats. Stack's wife and three of his five children also donated the maximum $2,000 to Gephardt, who dropped out of the race last month. Stack told The Associated Press Monday he is now undecided on whether to vote for Bush or one of the Democrats. Democratic Missouri Gov. Bob Holden, reacting to Bush's visit, said the state had gained more than 27,000 jobs in 2003, but "we have done this in spite of President Bush, not because of him." Three signs that read "Jobs for the 21st Century" flanked Bush, two of them set on photographs of NASCAR (news - web sites) race cars. That was a nod to the NASCAR championships in Daytona this weekend, where Bush is will be courting Southern voters. This year's 412-page "Economic Report of the President," presented to lawmakers Monday, is considerably more upbeat than Bush's report a year ago, issued at a time when the country was still mired in a lackluster recovery with the unemployment rate continuing to rise. In the new report, prepared by the president's Council of Economic Advisers, the president says that the country has been able to overcome a series of shocks starting with the bursting of the stock market bubble in early 2000 followed by the first recession in a decade, the terrorist attacks, two wars and corporate accounting scandals. The unemployment rate is now falling, hitting 5.6 percent in January, a month in which the economy managed to create 112,000 new jobs. However, even with the job growth of recent months, the country still has 2.2 million fewer payroll jobs than when Bush took office in January 2001.[/quote] Section bolded for extra irony. I agree that we should not be expanding the federal government, but he's the LAST person that should be talking about that.
I know! I saw that last night and almost fell out of my chair laughing. It's just absurd: Year Revenues Outlays 1992 1,091.3 1,381.7 1993 1,154.4 1,409.5 1994 1,258.6 1,461.9 1995 1,351.8 1,515.8 1996 1,453.1 1,560.5 1997 1,579.3 1,601.3 1998 1,721.8 1,652.6 1999 1,827.5 1,701.9 2000 2,025.2 1,788.8 2001 1,991.2 1,863.8 2002 1,853.2 2,011.0 2003 1,782.3 2,157.6 projected: 2004 1,817 2,294 As % of GDP Revenues Outlays 1992 17.5 22.2 1993 17.6 21.5 1994 18.1 21.0 1995 18.5 20.7 1996 18.9 20.3 1997 19.3 19.5 1998 20.0 19.2 1999 20.0 18.6 2000 20.9 18.4 2001 19.8 18.6 2002 17.9 19.4 2003 16.5 19.9 projected 2004 16.5 19.9 www.cbo.gov What a joke!
I just don't follow Bush's logic here Bush has increased spending 25% but he says that if the Democratcs roll back his tax cuts, they will be making the Federal Government bigger?
Sam, please adjust your numbers to normalize for the effects of the required spending on homeland security and defense as well as the logical drop in tax revenue from the recession we inherited from Clinton and the tragic attacks on 9-11. Then we can look at this objectively. Thanks in advance.
Guess again. Recession started in March 2001. This is really getting tiring, having to correct you on this fact everytime you post this Bush propaganda.
How about you work it out yourself? http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2004/pdf/hist.pdf www.cbo.gov BTW, the costs of homeland Security are around 10-30 b per year, going by the President's figures. By contrast, Iraq got an 87 b reconstruction program, and the burn rate for keeping troops in Iraq was something like 4b per month at one point. So I guess you're ok with keeping their homeland more secure than ours. But at least Agribusiness is being kept secure, "$87 billion in expanded benefits for farmers" God knows they need it.
1. This date is debatable. Most estimates have it starting in the first quarter of 2001, a quarter in which Clinton began. 2. The seeds were planted well before this as you well know. Economies don't just turn on a dime. 3. The markets began their decline in March of 2000. Clearly investors recognized that the economy had soured well before Clinton left office. Try again.
Finish what you started. Please normalize the numbers so that we can objectively look at them and analyze them. You introduced this into the discussion, now please finish your argument.
Yawn, if you'd bothered doing the research you'd realize that the CBO attempts to control for such factors. LOL, but you go ahead and do the math for me: Homeland security = 30-40 billion Federal budget = 2, 294 billion now, what's 40/2294? I don't know, but I imagine it's roughly half the 87/2294 that we are spending on anticompetitive agricultural price subsidies
Dude, that is so weak. The market decline that was one year prior to the recession was the bursting of the tech bubble. An argument can easily be made the market was just coming to its senses more so than pending economic doom.
Hmm... and don't you think the fallout from lost jobs, bankrupted businesses and reduced consumer wealth that accompanied this Clinton-era phenomenon had anything to do with the economy's behavior a year later? Your argument is laughable.
Hmmm....Seems to me this is the issue at hand, no? Of course if you start an argument with the assumption that you are correct, you will usually agree with yourself at the end.
All right, it's clear that big George was stone cold busted here. So little Jorge has to create a diversion to try to shift the focus away. Don't bother with him, he's not serious.
Sam, the diversion was an attempt to fill time while you complete your analysis. The board eagerly awaits your normalized figures.
You just changed the argument. Shame on you!!! You said The markets began their decline in March of 2000. Clearly investors recognized that the economy had soured well before Clinton left office. Your off-base implication here is that investors saw a economic decline on the horizon and became bearish. I pointed out that the decline was a bursting of a speculation bubble and that investors were just coming to their senses wrt equity valuations. IIRC the same thing happened in 1996 where the market corrected itself but not because of a pending economic downturn. Losing this argument, you proceeded to change the argument to don't you think the fallout from lost jobs, bankrupted businesses and reduced consumer wealth that accompanied this Clinton-era phenomenon had anything to do with the economy's behavior a year later? Here your implication is that a severe market downturn was really the cause of the March 2001 recession. 1996 again is the counterexample to your argument. BTW I am surprised that you made no mention of GWB daily bad mouthing the economy the first month in offfice to get his tax cut bill. Don't you think that a President trash talking the economy on a daily basis perchance pushed the weak economy into recession?
No Worries, first of all you have some editing to do. (I see you already edited 2000 to read 2001 -- good job!) You meant to say 'bearish' not 'bullish' -- of course this implies you know the difference between the two, which is far from certain. I didn't change the argument at all. You still lost it, rookie. Have you ever won a financial argument with me? I think not. My fundamental assertion has remained the same throughout: Events which occured during the Clinton administration led to a period of poor economic activity at the beginning of the Bush administration. Are you disputing this? I certainly hope not. If so, what little financial credibility you have would then be erased.
your not going to bait anyone with this bull$hit today GayGeorge, no on believes it... Causes of the Market Crashing 1. Corporate Corruption A lot of companies inflated their profits by means of fraud and accounting loopholes and hid their debt. Corporate officers had outrageous stock options that diluted the company. 2. Stocks were overvalued Stocks were trading in the hundreds and some in the thousands on a P/E basis. Some companies that were losing tons of money with no hope for profit until many years down the road had over a 1 billion dollar market cap. 3. A Wave of New Daytraders and Momentum Investors With the advent of the Internet and online trading, this gave traders a quick and cheap way to trade the markets. This led to millions of new investors hitting the markets with little or no experience. 4. Conflict of Interest by Research Firms Analysts and investment bankers worked very closely together. Whenever a company was trying to raise capital, the investment bankers made sure their research firms would put favorable ratings on stocks. This led to companies having favorable ratings even though the companies was in serious financial trouble. In some cases analysts had favorable ratings on stock less than a month before a company filed for chapter 11. These are the main reasons for the stock market declines, not Clinton...try again rookie
Congratulations, Chump! You have not weakened my argument, but in fact you have *buttressed* it! I repeat myself: My fundamental assertion has remained the same throughout: Events which occured during the Clinton administration led to a period of poor economic activity at the beginning of the Bush administration. All of the events you listed occurred during the Clinton administration! Thanks! Meanwhile, No Worries is blaming Bush. It looks like we both agree this is foolish. It's good to have you in my corner. Welcome.
