Budget policy, Bush style: "The dollar amounts saved by such cuts would be relatively small, and... conflict with other Bush policy goals.... But within the White House, such details aren't considered as important as engaging in a series of fights that enhance Mr. Bush's fiscal credibility." The important thing, you see, is getting some tame reporters to write about how Bush is fighting hard to control the deficit. The fact that Bush fiscal policy is a huge disaster is a "detail" that is not "important."
Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach George W. Bush now.
Posted by DeLong at December 12, 2003 09:13 AM | TrackBackWSJ.com - Bush Struggles To Improve Image On the Deficit: ...The heightened focus on the deficit belies Mr. Bush's fiscal record so far. Mr. Bush didn't fight for significant spending cuts this year, and he recently signed a bill that added a expensive new prescription-drug benefit to Medicare, and before that, he won approval of a series of tax cuts that have drained government revenue. The growth of spending has produced a chorus of complaints on the political right. Last week, a group of conservative activists met with Stephen Friedman, chairman of Mr. Bush's National Economic Council, and urged the White House to take a tougher line.... To enforce some budget discipline, Bush aides are considering pressing for budget overhauls. The proposals include budget caps on discretionary accounts, and "pay-as-you-go" rules.... Bush aides also are scouring for programs that could be targeted for elimination or deep cuts, particularly in the Commerce and Agriculture departments. The cuts would be portrayed as a fight against "corporate welfare."
The dollar amounts saved by such cuts would be relatively small, and could even conflict with other Bush policy goals.... But within the White House, such details aren't considered as important as engaging in a series of fights that enhance Mr. Bush's fiscal credibility...
Nah. You can't impeach a president for proving completely off the mark in his policies and programs -- he was, after all elected on the basis of those policies and programs, no?
Posted by: Bulent Sayin on December 12, 2003 09:30 AMActually, Bulent, no (meaning, i agree with you that you can't actually impeach bush, and i'm sure the prof does too, but no, bush didn't run on anything like what he's done. Bush ran, fiscally, on the "lockbox," and he assured us that we could afford all the tax cuts without dipping into the "lockbox").
Posted by: howard on December 12, 2003 11:21 AMI confess watching the 2000 presidential debates via the Saturday Night Live proxy ---
But wasn't it the OTHER Ivy League son-of-a-politician who promised us a "lock box" ?
Those two were SO much alike it was easy to get confused. Nader and Buchanan, now, THOSE two I could tell apart.
Brad, I take it that Bush and his team are speaking in court, under oath, when they tell their lies? Also?
Poucher: Perjury? I ask as any real reading of Kevin Hassert's testimony before Congress on 10/25/2001 had him contradicting himself. His claim is now repeated often. Tax cuts will not raise interest rates ala Ricardian Equivalence (RE) even though they do stimulate aggregate demand ala more consumption. Never mind that RE says unfunded tax cuts do not stimulate consumption and NOT that somehow the law of scarcity has been repealed. Was Hassert under oath during his testimony?
Incidentally, the GOP members of Congress are saying we don't need tax increases to balance the budget as spending restraint alone will do the trick Huh?
Posted by: Harold McClure on December 12, 2003 11:40 AMThis is why I am supporting Dean.
None of the other candidates will stand up
and call a lie a lie.
His attempting to do it may not work, but
he is the only Dem that seems willing to even
try to call Bush on his lies.
Meanwhile, cann't we try telling the press that the plunge in the dollar is just starting and it
is due to the Bush program of turning the US into
a banana republic.
Bush can always argue along the lines "well, then came along S11 and we had to defend ourselves" blah blah... (Aphganistan was necessary for defense, Iraq was not)
But that's not too important.
The important thing is:
1- They took Office to eliminate budget surplus and any chance of having budget surplus again that would inspire expanded social programs, say for a decade or two.
2- Productivity pressure might prove that plan dangerous; dangerous from political (and therefore economic) stability point of view.
If the capitalists become convinced of number 2 above, then Bush is gone, proven liar or not.
But Howard Dean meanwhile needs to train himself on a better plan.
Pouncer
There was a huge huge huge difference between George Bush and Al Gore. Grow up!
Posted by: emma on December 12, 2003 01:08 PMyeah, even in the SNL debates.
Gore: "Lockbox!"
Bush: "Strategery!"
it was great.
Ummm,...Bush actually did go for the lockbox thingie. Gore said it, so Bush said it, too. Having watched his performance compared to his campaign chatter, I have to guess that Bush didn't much care what he had to say to get elected. Once elected, he gave us a clearer look at his policies, but still hasn't been willing to speak very clearly about them.
Now, it would be interesting to see how long a straight-from-the-hip attitude would last in Dean if he go the job.
Posted by: K Harris on December 12, 2003 03:33 PMWith your support, perhaps you'll have a chance to find out.
Posted by: Barry on December 12, 2003 03:46 PMPouncer, to amplify K Harris' remarks just a touch: both candidates ran on the "lockbox," which was broadly taken as a euphemism for maintaining a strong fiscal policy. Bush's campaign argument (remember the $4 he used as a stage prop?) was that he could cut taxes by the $1 that the government was overcharging us, and use the other three to keep government going fine, including maintaining social security and medicare.
Now, as a simple matter of fact, his proposals never added up (for the crime of having been the only pundit of note to point this out in 2000, paul krugman was labelled "shrill;" for the crime of pointing this out during a debate, al gore was tarred with the "fuzzy math" brush that a halfway competent media would have noted belonged to bush himself), but in terms of what he ran on, he ran on having it all: fiscal stability and big tax cuts.
When reality intervened, he took to telling the trifecta lie, a truly weird example of george bush's detachment from reality when he practices politics to attempt to give himself a retrospective out that he had pointedly declined to take at the time (unlike Gore, who labelled a big chunk of dollars in his budget plans "contingency," Bush planned to cut taxes to get rid of it all).
In short, we see the exact same personality that we see in every other aspect of bush's presidency: he's ill-informed, he'll say anything, he's a very shallow thinker, and therefore his policies never add up to anything.
Posted by: howard on December 12, 2003 09:46 PMOne look at the cbo numbers will explain the deficit. As a percentage of GDP:
1992 Revenue 17.6% Outlays 20.5%
2000 Revenue 19.2% Outlays 18.2 %
2002 Revenue 17.5% Outlays 18.9%
Under Clinton, Revenue increased as % of GDP for every year except 1999 (down 0.1%) Outlays as % of GDP decreased decreased every year except 1995. Under Mr. Bush, Revenue % has declined and Outlays have increased. I don't know why the media won't publish these numbers or discuss them? Why do they rely on spin instead??