New Tax Cuts vs Tax Increases

The President was in Sterling, a Virginia suburb of Washington D.C., today and talking economics. If you are the kind of person who gets angry when you are lied to, you might not want to hear what he was saying.

He noted that 4.6 million new jobs have been created since April 2003 and the national unemployment rate is 4.9 percent. The administration was promoting this line elsewhere, too. Vice President Cheney spoke at a Harley-Davidson factory.

"Some in Washington said these tax cuts would not work," But after seeing the nation add more than four million jobs since 2003, he said, "it's getting pretty hard for the critics to make the case that somehow these tax cuts weren't good for the economy."

The Bush Administration had claimed that the cuts would create 5.5 million jobs. So, let's just see how hard it is to make the case that these tax cuts weren't good for the economy. HEY DICK! YOU MISSED YOUR TARGET BY A MILLION DAMN JOBS.

That wasn't so hard, was it? The New York Times took a different tact.

The unemployment rate edged down to 4.9 percent in December from 5 percent in November, but that decline had little to do with the comparatively small gain in jobs. Rather, it stemmed from the fact that more people dropped out of the work force.

Oh, that's just great. Unemployment is down because people are getting too discouraged to look for jobs.

Why would that be? Could it be because wages are not keeping up with inflation? Could it be because the vast majority of new jobs are only part-time jobs? Or that the new jobs are in industries in which the average wage is 30% less than in the industries that are losing jobs?

But I haven't even gotten to the sickening part of W's war on truth. Here's what he said about the tax cuts.

Congress needs to make the tax relief permanent. ... That's a tax increase if the tax relief expires.

Unbelievable!

In case you forgot: When Bush was appointed President he inherited a budget surplus. This was his first excuse for tax cuts -- a refund to the American people who had been over-charged.

Then, of course, a recession hit, and his reaction was to lie and say that it had started during the Clinton administration. This guy's motto is "The buck stops with the previous administration." Be that as it may, W responded by saying we needed tax cuts to stimulate the economy.

The deficit continued to grow and the recession continued. Next came 9-11 and so W led us into a war on false pretenses. But Bush was more steadfast in his devotion to tax cuts than he was to, say, finding Osama Bin Laden.

The deficit started to head for the stratosphere, and W was called upon to explain why his promise that the deficit would not increase was not being kept.

"You know, I was campaigning in Chicago and somebody asked me, is there ever any time where the budget might have to go into deficit? I said only if we were at war or had a national emergency or were in recession. Little did I realize we'd get the trifecta." —President George W. Bush, Charlotte, North Carolina, Feb. 27, 2002

Listen here. Heh, heh, heh.

The situation was serious, so Bush used the big guns. When he promoted a drug program for seniors, he lied to Congress about the cost, and the deficit headed off towards the moon. At this rate, how could W possibly keep the promise that the deficit would be reduced in half?

The trick is to fudge the numbers. Here's how it works. The President's tax cuts were "temporary." That way when the Congressional Budget Office calculates the effect of the tax cut package on future deficits, it doesn't look so bad.

Yesterday's comment reveals what we knew all along. that King George never intended for the tax cuts to be temporary. That's the kind of creative accountancy that made Bush Buddy Ken Lay what he is today.

Let's get it straight. The tax cuts are about to expire. The Government is about to run out of money. Bush wants to enact new tax cuts. The old ones didn't work. The various old rationales are no longer relevant: America hasn't been over-charged; The specific tax cuts are not stimulating job growth; We are not in a recession requiring budgetary stimulus.

These deficits are truly dangerous. The money must be repaid, and I'm guessing it won't be by the millionaires who got the tax cuts. Who are we borrowing the money from to finance the deficit? The Chinese. What will happen when the sources of credit are tapped out? It won't be pretty.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”