According to Steve Verdon, Democrats better update their talking points. The next time they bring up the Bush economy (which soon will be called the Bush boom), Steve Verdon suggests mentioning the Clinton recession.
Also, there is this news:
Revising its year-end economic forecast sharply upward, The Conference Board today projected that real GDP growth will hit 5.7% next year, making 2004 the best year economically in the last 20 years.
The forecast, by Conference Board Chief Economist Gail Fosler, expects worker productivity, which set a 20-year record in the third quarter, to rise at a healthy 3.6% next year. That would follow a gain of 4.3% this year.
Slartibartfast
It was always the Clinton recession, if you’re going to hang a tag on it like that. The stock market was stagnating in the spring of 2000, in case no one was paying attention. The NBER peak date is just the time when the economy turns around and started heading south. The slowdown started much earlier, of course.
That said, I don’t subscribe to blaming Clinton for it, either. I just like to bring that up when people blame Bush for the downturn.
Andrew Lazarus
Sorry, guys. The new data do not indicate a Clinton recession, which is g enerally called on the basis of CONSECUTIVE MONTHS of negative growth. Even with the revised figures, this didn’t happen.
I don’t blame GWB for the recession, either,—yes, Virginia, there is a business cycle—but I think his economic policies (instituting a multi-hundred-billion dollar structural deficit) are crippling. For example, how will we prime the pump when the NEXT recession comes around, if instead of a surplus, we are ALREADY facing half-trillion dollars in red ink?
John Cole
I agree, Andrew- as I have stated repeatedly, I think Presidents get too much credit and too much blame for cyclical events in the economy. Do I think Clinton is responsible for the bubble? No. But neither do I think Bush is…
When the Democrats quit trying to pin the job losses of the last few years and the general economic downturn on Bush, I will stop playing their game, too.
Kimmitt
The problem being that the American public blames the President for the state of the economy, and everyone (Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, and Green) must cater to its perceptions.
Hal
Something about chickens and counting them before they’re hatched.
MBankaT
Good DEAN talking point-(not to mention the four ‘Soviet Union’ gaffes (they won’t do to him as they did to Dan Quayle)- DEAN: “I’ll unseal mine if he’ll unseal all his.” – Bush’s records in Texas were NEVER Sealed. It is state law:
http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/arc/findingaids/bush.html
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1034515/posts
FreeRepublic.com “A Conservative News Forum”
GMA Fails to Correct Dean
Andrew Lazarus
MBankaT, perhaps you could stay on topic? If you must digress, perhaps you can riff on
Hal
Here’s some sobering news for you John. I’d be a bit leery of counting those chickens if I was you. . .
Andrew Lazarus
I read today that at this big upswing stage coming out of recession, jobs should be created at 300K a month, as the recovery will, of course, eventually level. That’s about what GWB promised his tax cut doctrine would bring.
We’re nowhere near that.
Consumer Confidence Falls [unexpectedly, too].
John Cole
Andrew- What would the job situation have been without the tax cuts?
Kimmitt
Probably a little worse, but the tax cuts were aimed at stimulating investment (insofar as they were aimed at anything at all; they had no economic reasoning behind them, only ideological reasoning (not that that’s all bad, just that economics wasn’t part of the discussion)) rather than consumption, and the anemic job growth is based mostly on anemic consumption figures.
Of course, if I had my druthers, we’d all work a little less, earn a little less, and everyone would be employed. More vacations, more dignity. Everybody wins. :)