The "Clinton Recession"/"Bush Recovery" lie

[zbdent]

The economy did start on the waning days of Clinton.

That much is true. But the truth is this:

The mark of a recession is two straight quarters of negative growth, right?

If, barring the right's attempt to say that the recession started in March 2000 (instead of the truly recognized March 2001), then you count back three months to what was going on.

Say, December 13, 2000. Bush is awarded the pResidency, like the Russian figure skaters.

Alan Greenspan, who was given the green light to do whatever he felt was needed under Clinton, is told, no, ORDERED by Bush to drop the interest rates like a hot potato.

The businesses, knowing that the key to Bush's entire presidency (at the time) was tax cuts for the wealthy, take their money away, knowing that they were going to get all their money without the messy need for following regulations.

My point? The recession started the moment Bush told Greenspan to cut interest rates in total panic.

Remember how it seemed that Greenspan was ordering the rates cut almost daily? It got to the point where the interest rates were merely ceremonial.

[denverbill]

1. Recall December 2000.

Shrub had just been annoited Boy King. Shrub and his gang began to talk about how horrible the economy was. Over and over, day after day, despite there being no real sign of any problems. Democrats started to criticize Shrubby because his continual bad-mouthing of the economy was starting to make business rethink hiring and expansion plans, especially since the only reason he was bad-mouthing it was to build support for his idiotic tax cuts.

Sure enough, only a few short months later, we were in a recession. Republicans at the time insisted it was impossible to bad-mouth an economy into a recession.

Oddly enough, the economy now is WAY WAY WAY worse than when Shrub took office, but Shrub isn't begging for more tax cuts, or talking about how bad the economy is.

Despite the fact that we have a $500 billion budget deficit, record high gas prices, resurgent inflation, millions of lost jobs, etc, etc.

[zbdent]

2. Not only do I recall Dec 2000, but I have the freepin' dialogues on

how "Gore is 'gore-ing' the stock market, and going to send the economy into a depression; why won't he save the country and quit??"

Literally. I saved the freepin' newsgroup postings. They were saying that we lefties were likely to do a "scorched earth" effect.

[Old and In the Way]

3. That $500BB deficit, was a $400BB surplus when he took over.

I wonder how much of that surplus could have been reinvested in our economy with a targeted taxcut to the middle-class? Instead of being locked up in non-working investments or reinvested in other markets?

The taxcuts and the Bush War are the drivers for why our economy is in the crapper.

[denverbill]

4. Considering 15% of our budget is interest on the debt,

imagine what we could have done with all THAT money, had the debt been paid off.

[tritsofme]

5. Business cycles

The 2001 recession was inevitable, however its aftermath could have been greatly different if responsible fiscal policy was enacted.

I have always said that there would have been a recession in 2001 regardless of who was president, however it would have made sense to use the surplus as a rainy day fund with targetted tax cuts to help the middle class, not the ultrawealthy. If you want to stimulate the economy, suspend payroll taxes, don't cut taxes for millionaires.

We would have had a recession simply because you cannot have growth indefinitely. The business cycle indicates that there will be ups and downs. In 2001 we saw a cyclical recession that's aftermath was made worse by terrorism and irresponsible fiscal policy, and now we are seeing a cyclical recovery with the business cycle trumping even the worst fiscal decisions.

Now the economy is expanding and things are improving despite bush and his ilk, and if we don't come around to that fact we could find ourselves in a heap of trouble come November.