George W. Bush didn’t kill the Golden Goose, but he sure as hell turned its feathers gray. Now the old bird’s waddling up and down Wall Street with a Styrofoam cup, pleading, “Change? Change? Change?” Help’s on the way, but John McCain’s close behind, waving his bloody little hatchet.
When you compare the eight years preceding George W. Bush with the seven years of his presidency (as the House Democratic Caucus did recently), it’s easy to see that the Delusional Dauphin almost succeeded in wringing the neck of our high-flying national bird, Americus Goldenous Economus. In the eight years before Bush (referred to hereafter as BB), our GDP grew 4.09 percent; in the seven years after Bush (AB) it grew 2.65 percent. BB we were creating 1.7 million jobs per year; AB the number is 369,000. In the seven years BB, household income increased $6,000; AB it has decreased $1,100. Then, gasoline was selling for $1.39 a gallon, our trade deficit was $380 billion, and the federal budget was showing a $431 billion surplus. Now, petrol is up over $3.00 a gallon, our trade deficit is $12.8 trillion, and the budget is $734 billion in arrears.
The bottom line is that the line is, well, on the bottom, and we’re headed into what Republicans always call a downturn, Democrats always call a recession, and average non-econometric people always recognize as another batch of smelly big business homebrew.
Fortunately, we do have national elections every four years and the harbingers of change — Barack and Hillary — are tripping towards November. Either of them is bound to do a better job than Bush on the economy because they both have IQ’s that pop up past 99 on a hot summer day. But standing in their way is the Batboy for the Bush Leaguers, John McCain, a man who helped hold down the wings of the Golden Goose for the past seven years while the war profiteers, the Katrina scavengers and the sub-prime mortage manglers plucked its feathers.
Consider. McCain holds himself out as a maverick, beholden to no man. But whenever Bush needed votes for an other bad trade deal, he turned to McCain and McCain backed his play — NAFTA, CAFTA, Oman, Singapore, Chile, Columbia, China. Now McCain says if he gets elected he’s willing to negotiate a free trade agreement “with almost any country.” Whenever Bush needed cover to boost the profits of his big business backers, McCain got his back by voting in favor of outsourcing of government contracts, against protections to slow the export of U.S. jobs and in favor of waiving and weakening “Buy America” laws. When Bush had to have moral underpinning for his tax cuts for the wealthy, McCain-of-the-straight-talk-express endorsed them, promoted them, voted for them (two weeks ago I would have written “pimped them,” but I am not a slow learner). Tax cuts for the insurance industry? Hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from financial institutions, big banks and insurance companies? Yes, yes, yes. Programs to retrain workers? Overtime rights? Extension of unemployment compensation? School construction funding? No, no, no and no.
When McCain called himself a “foot soldier” for Ronald Reagan, he was telling the truth. When he said, “The issue of economics is something that I’ve never understood as well as I should,” he was also telling the truth. That makes twice.
When you compare the eight years preceding George W. Bush with the seven years of his presidency (as the House Democratic Caucus did recently), it’s easy to see that the Delusional Dauphin almost succeeded in wringing the neck of our high-flying national bird, Americus Goldenous Economus. In the eight years before Bush (referred to hereafter as BB), our GDP grew 4.09 percent; in the seven years after Bush (AB) it grew 2.65 percent. BB we were creating 1.7 million jobs per year; AB the number is 369,000. In the seven years BB, household income increased $6,000; AB it has decreased $1,100. Then, gasoline was selling for $1.39 a gallon, our trade deficit was $380 billion, and the federal budget was showing a $431 billion surplus. Now, petrol is up over $3.00 a gallon, our trade deficit is $12.8 trillion, and the budget is $734 billion in arrears.
The bottom line is that the line is, well, on the bottom, and we’re headed into what Republicans always call a downturn, Democrats always call a recession, and average non-econometric people always recognize as another batch of smelly big business homebrew.
Fortunately, we do have national elections every four years and the harbingers of change — Barack and Hillary — are tripping towards November. Either of them is bound to do a better job than Bush on the economy because they both have IQ’s that pop up past 99 on a hot summer day. But standing in their way is the Batboy for the Bush Leaguers, John McCain, a man who helped hold down the wings of the Golden Goose for the past seven years while the war profiteers, the Katrina scavengers and the sub-prime mortage manglers plucked its feathers.
Consider. McCain holds himself out as a maverick, beholden to no man. But whenever Bush needed votes for an other bad trade deal, he turned to McCain and McCain backed his play — NAFTA, CAFTA, Oman, Singapore, Chile, Columbia, China. Now McCain says if he gets elected he’s willing to negotiate a free trade agreement “with almost any country.” Whenever Bush needed cover to boost the profits of his big business backers, McCain got his back by voting in favor of outsourcing of government contracts, against protections to slow the export of U.S. jobs and in favor of waiving and weakening “Buy America” laws. When Bush had to have moral underpinning for his tax cuts for the wealthy, McCain-of-the-straight-talk-express endorsed them, promoted them, voted for them (two weeks ago I would have written “pimped them,” but I am not a slow learner). Tax cuts for the insurance industry? Hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from financial institutions, big banks and insurance companies? Yes, yes, yes. Programs to retrain workers? Overtime rights? Extension of unemployment compensation? School construction funding? No, no, no and no.
When McCain called himself a “foot soldier” for Ronald Reagan, he was telling the truth. When he said, “The issue of economics is something that I’ve never understood as well as I should,” he was also telling the truth. That makes twice.