Re: 'How, exactly, has Bush "lost around 1/2 million jobs".'
That's shorthand for 'it happened on his watch'.
(I agree that a President's effects on the over-all economy are generally over-rated. But, when the economy is good, they take all the credit that can get... and when it's bad they need to accept some level of responsibility also --- if for no other reason then to be consistent. But, let me not mince words: President's can't repeal the business cycle! the Federal Reserve has far more influence on general business conditions then any President does... at least, in the short-run.)
"Can you point me to a specific policy that George Bush has pushed through that has caused this job loss?"
I would argue that certain of his policies have contributed to the extraordinarily weak environment for jobs:
1) He argued that his 'tax cuts' would be immediately stimulative (in fact, that was the public face he put upon the proposal: 'needed to end the recession'.)
However, most economists (including several inside the administration) pointed out that OTHER suggested tax-cutting programs would have provided vastly more stimulus to the economy.
For example: putting larger cuts into the hands of the middle and lower class (who's marginal propensity to spend is much greater then it is at the higher incomes)... or reducing corporate tax rates (we have among the highest statutory corporate rates in the world) while simultaneously eliminating some of the counter-productive and overly complex loopholes which bedevil the tax codes and skew resources away from the most productive sectors (mostly the job-creating small business and new-tech sectors... the existing tax code 'special preference items' are heavily weighted to benefit old-line companies).
BOTH of these approaches would have resulted in greater over-all economic growth, and greater job uptake.
(Simply aiming large tax cuts to upper income earners... without concurrently reforming the codes, provides some stimulus, but not necessarily much domestic job growth. The extra retained earning of the upper income folks are not necessarily recycled into job-producing investments... They could go into muni bonds, or equities overseas in China, India, etc... where jobs may be created, but at little net benefit to the US. And, I've already pointed-out that their marginal propensity to consume is lower then the lower wage earners, which equals lower stimulation for job production.)
Another example: if Bush had had the guts to make earnings paid out by corporations in dividends a tax deduction for the corporations (as it rightly should be!), this too would have stimulated job production far more then the plan he enacted.
Finally... the GAO, and the CBO (not to mention the private econometrics firm the WH hired to run the numbers on his tax plans, and use "dynamic scoring" to ASSUME that tax cuts always increase growth and revenue) all three came back with the same disquieting analysis:
UNLESS THE FEDERAL DEFICITS ARE DRASTICALLY REDUCED... THEN BY MID-DECADE (ie, right around now or next year), THE STIMULATIVE EFFECTS OF THE BUSH TAX CUTS BEGIN TO BE OVERWHELMED BY THE GROWTH-DEPRESSING EFFECTS OF THE DEFICITS... AND BY THE END OF THE DECADE, ALL THE BENEFICIAL EFFECTS ARE LONG GONE, AND WE ARE IN DEEP TROUBLE, WITH STRUCTURAL DEFICITS OUT BEYOND THE HORIZON JUST AS THE BABY BOOM RETIREMENTS ARE BEGINING TO SERIOUSLY WEIGH UPON THE SYSTEM... AND AN ECONOMIC GROWTH RATE LOWER THEN IT WOULD HAVE OTHERWISE BEEN, IF NOTHING HAD BEEN CHANGED AT ALL.
Bush is 'playing chicken' with the nation's future.
(Note: I support tax cuts... tax cuts are GOOD. But without reducing spending and the multitude of loophole give-aways to special interests which distort economic activity away from productive behavior, simply to capture tax preferences... the nation loses. The economic mismanagement of the last few years is some of the worst I've ever seen in my lifetime.) |
