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Politics : John Kerry for President? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (2619)	10/20/2004 10:50:36 AM
From: JakeStraw	Respond to of 3515

Read the truth AS for once in your pitiful life - techstocks.com You really are amazing how EVERYONE has caught YOU lying, yet you are too stupid to realize it!

To: American Spirit who wrote (2619)	10/20/2004 11:03:43 AM
From: JakeStraw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3515

How Bush compares with Hoover on jobs By Thomas Bray / The Detroit News Barely a day goes by without someone in the Democratic Party or the media comparing the Bush record on jobs with that of Herbert Hoover. “This all started when George Bush became president,” said Democratic National Chairman Terry McAuliffe in Oregon last week. “George Bush has been a disaster. George Bush will be the first president since Herbert Hoover who lost jobs during his presidency.” A story later in the week by White House AP correspondent Terence Hunt repeated the Hoover comparison. Put aside that this didn’t all start when Bush became president. Most economists agree that the economy already was slowing by the time he became president. The ensuing, rather mild, recession was prolonged by the shock of September 11. The real point is that the effort to link Bush with Hoover is a classic case of what a psychiatrist might call transference. During his four years in office, Hoover followed the very policies being advocated most ardently these days by the Democrats — tax increases, trade barriers and higher spending on social programs. If anybody is following in the tradition of Hoover, it’s Kerry and Edwards, who are advocating the same castor oil for the economy. Also note that the critics carefully limit their Hoover comparison to the number of jobs lost. True, under Bush, jobs have declined 2.2 million, about the same as under the four years of the Hoover administration from 1929 to 1933. But in 1929, when the population was 121 million, a job loss of two million was a national catastrophe. It sent unemployment rocketing from 3.2 percent in 1929 to 23.6 percent in 1932. In 2004, when the population is more than 280 million, a loss of two million jobs means a national unemployment rate of 5.6 percent, sorrowful for the individuals involved but hardly a national calamity. With the economy finally on the mend, the net job loss by the end of Bush’s four years in office next January is likely to be far less — and might even wind up a net gain. The president’s economic advisers were extremely unwise to predict as much in a recent White House report — all forecasts, particularly about the future, being politically dangerous — but it may be true. Household surveys that include the self-employed are showing far stronger job gains than the more-often-quoted survey of major businesses. But what if Democrats are right? Their proposed policies aren’t likely to make the situation much better — and could easily make it worse. It’s an axiom among Democrats that Franklin D. Roosevelt led the nation out of the Great Depression. But a closer look at his peacetime performance suggests something quite different. FDR scrapped his own balanced budget pledge as soon as he took office in 1932 and opened the spending spigots. By 1936, the deficit had risen to 5.5 percent of national output — even higher than the Bush deficit is expected to be. And while the number of jobs did expand, it was still 3.2 million jobs short of the 1929 high water mark. By 1936, unemployment still stood at 16.9 percent, nearly triple today’s national unemployment rate. Even after another four years of New Deal economics, including a hefty tax hike that did little to narrow the deficit, unemployment was still 14.6 percent. But we don’t hear Democrats talking about an FDR disaster. Would higher taxes at least reduce inequality and “unfairness,” as Kerry and Edwards are claiming? The data on this issue only go back to 1947, but it’s worth remembering that in the 1990s, after Bill Clinton’s 1993 increase in the top income tax rate, inequality actually increased. The top five percent of income earners went from having 17.4 percent of all income in 1990, at the end of the Reagan decade, to 21.1 percent in 2000. The bottom 20 percent lost ground. Bush may not have a great economic record, at least so far. But comparing Bush with Hoover is a bit like comparing a pothole in the road to Death Valley. And it suggests that Democrats don’t have a firm grip on what makes an economy tick. detnews.com