Word: bush
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...There is no denying that previous administrations helped to create the conditions from which our current crisis stems, but a closer inspection suggests that Democrats deserve the most blame. Both the Bush and Clinton administrations (but especially Clinton’s) recklessly pushed to expand home ownership, fuelling the bubble in housing prices and its collapse. Former President Bush’s failure to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac permitted the crisis in subprime mortgages to build, though congressional Democrats bear the lion’s share of blame for their obstructionism: They opposed a Bush administration proposal...
...Noticeably absent from this explanation of the recession is any mention of Bush’s tax policy, health-care plans, climate-change proposals, education programs, or foreign policy. Reading The Crimson, however, you’d think the president’s policies broke the economy by themselves. Bush-hating revisionists use the unpopularity of our 43rd president to discredit conservative policies in general. But Bush’s failure to regulate financial and housing markets should not be confused with his success in economic growth, trade, education, and health care...
...common refrain of revisionists is that Bush foolishly pursued “deregulation” by cutting taxes. They simply throw out the term “Bush tax cuts” followed by a non sequitur explaining why the economy is suffering. However, tax cuts are not deregulation. Deregulation implies a change in the rules and restrictions that structure markets, while tax cuts instead put money in the pockets of American consumers to use within the existing regulatory environment. Plus, not all deregulation is created equal: The poor accounting standards that led to the Enron scandal have nothing...
...Revisionists also ignore the success of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts: After their implementation, GDP grew uninterrupted for five years at an average rate of 4.1 percent, businesses created five million new jobs, and lower top marginal rates created incentives for unforeseen innovation. In fact, without the Bush tax cuts the economic downturn might have been harder on the poor. His plan increased the child tax credit and reduced rates for lower-middle-class families. The only substantive critique leveled by revisionists at the Bush tax cuts is that they widened budget deficits. But, if deficits caused the recession...
...Meanwhile, the No Child Left Behind Act has led to steady if modest improvement in education performance (especially among minorities), which is needed to prepare Americans for the 21st-century jobs that will lead us out of recession. Private health care and Medicare benefits also increased substantially under President Bush. Incidentally, they are the reason that wages, which are only part of employee compensation, were supposedly stagnant under his administration. Productivity expanded, in part because Bush avoided dangerous policies like card-check, which President Obama, in the middle of a recession, now foolishly advocates. Finally, the administration?...