August 31, 2004
It's the Economy, Stupid!
While Bush continues to take credit for a growing economy, seems that only his boardroom buddies are feeling the improvement.
Meanwhile, the majority of the country continues to wait for this recovery that’s yet to appear across the heartland, as today’s Consumer confidence numbers suggest.
The Conference Board, a business research group, said its index of consumer confidence sank to 98.2 from a reading of 105.7 in July. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast that the index would slip, but just a bit to 103.4. The August reading was the lowest since May and showed the biggest drop since February.
With jobs growth falling way below estimates in recent months and U.S. Census stats showing that poverty is on the rise in this nation, things don't look very optimistic for those not earning six-figure salaries.
And Bush seems intent on further shifting the balance of wealth in this nation towards the few. In recent weeks, his comments have demonstrated just how well he looks out for the rich -- at the expense of the vast majority of Americans. He has suggested that looking into replacing income tax with a national sales tax might be a good thing.
While in Florida a couple weeks ago, Bush stated "You know, I'm not exactly sure how big the national sales tax is going to have to be, but it's the kind of interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously."
And the GOP has been exploring it. In fact a bill (H.R. 25) has already been introduced in Conress by John Linder (R-GA), which includes a 23% sales tax.
But even the way they state the tax rate in the bill is deceptive. Their "23%" is of the total price paid, not tacked onto the product's base price.
The way the rest of us calculate tax, that'd be 30%. And are we going to pay 30% for everything? How about a 30% tax on that house. Or an extra 30% on all your groceries.
The result of such a plan would be that a family of 4 earning $35,000 and spending all of it in order to put a roof over their head and food on the table would be paying about 1/3 of their income as tax (assuming some credit card debt, as well). Meanwhile, the doctor making $200,000 and living on $75,000 would be paying about 11% of his income in tax.
And such a system makes things like deductions for mortgage interest, child credits, educational expenses, etc. impossible what with the getting rid of the IRS and all.
I'm not sure what's going on out in all those red states. There are just too many people working so hard to get by that still support Bush and the GOP's attempt to loot their wallets.
But why? What is the likelihood of Topeka or Huntsville being struck by terrorists? And yet those voters are placing the war on terror above their day to day economic survival? Either their priorities are irrational, or they are oblivious to the lack of "fair and balanced" coverage on FoxNews, or I'm really missing something...
Posted by blipsman at August 31, 2004 05:19 PMI guess I wish both parties would stop pretending the the Presidency has such a major impact on the economy. Granted, the position has the power to screw things if the occupant really wanted to, but in general, the President can just re-adjust the sails. The ship pretty much sails itself. Major economic adjustments take a long time to come from Presidential tweaks (in either direction). It’s a great thing to campaign on, but it isn’t very accurate.
Like you, I get sort of tired of it all.
The Republican Party could say the sky is yellow and half the Country would immediately redefine the color spectrum. I too am perplexed by the sector of this country which consistently votes against it’s own best interest. Life is an illusion, facts mean nothing in the hands of media manipulators.
Posted by: bayviking at August 31, 2004 06:20 PMI agree that the president doesn’t have as much direct control over the economy/jobs as he’d like to take credit for. However policies such as the large tax cuts with simultaneous increases in spending cause defecits, which cause the dollar to drop, which is part of the surge in oil prices. The tax policies meant to spur investment don’t, really, if demand isn’t there and/or if the money is invested in outsourcing. Either way, not too hard to see why there aren’t jobs being created.
Posted by: blipsman at August 31, 2004 06:46 PMblipsman, also not hard to see with a 10 trillion dollar debt in a few years, why taxes have nowhere to go but up, thanks to Bush and this Republican Congress who squandered the credibility they had about being the party of fiscal conservativism and responsibility.
My daughter will be paying for this administration in higher taxes for at least a quarter of her working lifetime.
Posted by: David R. Remer at August 31, 2004 07:05 PMLike the rest of you I don’t think both parties and big businesses understand how the economy works. Bush and Congress lost their change to put this economy over the top in 2001 when they made the first round of tax cuts. Yet instead of doing what was right for everybody, they choose the easy way out.
Presidents, Congress, and Big businesses do have the ability to influence the market, but unless the middle and lower class have the extra cash to buy the products, goods, and services it takes to make the economy operate and grow there will not be real growth in our economy. How better would this country be off and how richer would the rich be if Bush and Congress would of worked out a way to raise everybodies pay by $2.00/hour and lowered the taxes by only 1% across the board?
Posted by: Henry Schlatman at August 31, 2004 07:51 PMI don’t see how a sales tax can even be considered for replacing an income tax. It’s beyond ridiculous. Fairness issues aside (and yes, of course this proposal would overwhelmingly shift the tax burden to the poor) a sales tax would be the worst thing ever to happen to our economy.
The only thing a sales tax would accomplish is inhibiting consumption, decreasing demand, and sending our national income into a tailspin. Your average consumer would do everything they could to limit spending/consumption as much as possible in order to lower their effective tax rate. On the aggregate this would be nothing short of a complete disaster.
Honestly, who comes up with these ridiculous proposals? Are the rich so concerned with shifting the tax burden that they are willing to shrink the pie for us all? In this tax scenario, I think ultimately everyone is a loser.
Posted by: Andrew L. at August 31, 2004 08:26 PMAndrew, I don’t see how a national sales tax could be made both successful in dealing with our fiscal mess, and fair to the American consumer. That said, I would not want to take it off the table just yet.
The current tax system is so convoluted and costly and unenforceable, that any and all options should be considered initially. We have simply got to get this discussion moving forward, and as all design teams know, one does not start out successfully by eliminating options, but, be collecting them.
Elimination comes after examination of each option in the full light of inquiry, debate, and feasbility assessments against standards set by goals.
Posted by: David R. Remer at August 31, 2004 10:40 PMEither way, not too hard to see why there aren’t jobs being created.
Posted by blipsman at August 31, 2004 06:46 PM
The above statement is unique in its utter ignorance of what has been happening for the past 11 months. 1.5 Million new jobs have been created in this time frame, yet blipsman is still saying jobs are not being created. Is it that blipsman has not yet heard this? Or is it that he is too partisan to accept the economic reality?
Of course, the next tactic will be to say that “Well, Bush has still lost more jobs than he created.”, which is an entirely different statement. It happens to be a true statement, as opposed to blipsman’s totally incorrect statement from his post, but it also ignores the fact that Bush inherited an economy on the way down, and endured the negative impacts of 9-11 and the accounting scandals.
A third tactic will be to exclaim shrilly that the jobs being created are not good jobs, but FactCheck.org debunks that statement, if one has the desire and ability to access that site.
So its interesting to see the left jump from point to point. First, no jobs are created, then its the admission that jobs HAVE in fact been created, but the net is still negative, and then that the jobs (yknow, the ones that were NOT being created in the first statement) are not good jobs.
What an amazing way of looking at the world. Makes me chuckle.
Posted by: joebagodonuts at September 1, 2004 06:32 AMLiberals could say the sky is red and half the country would do the same.
You say we vote against our own best interests?
If voting for personal responsibility, for the WHOLE Constitution, for safety, for the right to decide where our money goes and for common sense is doing so, then I guess we do.
I don’t always vote for the same party, I always vote for the person who I believe has the better record. But since I do still believe in the Constitution and its principles, I will never vote for a liberal.
I don’t always vote for the same party, I always vote for the person who I believe has the better record. But since I do still believe in the Constitution and its principles, I will never vote for a liberal.
There’s right-wing irrationality in a nutshell. Of course, the so-called “left” is no better. I don’t think Americans have any clear conception of the distinction between “liberal” and “conservative” any more. Nor for that matter of the difference between “democratic” and “totalitarian”, or “capitalist” and “socialist” (read the last paragraph).
Posted by: David at September 6, 2004 04:41 AM
