--- JDG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > And thus our current President presided over one of > the mildest recessions > ever - even after the bursting of an asset bubble no > less!
Well, true enough, but: 1. How much of that is he responsible for? Probably a lot. Let's be fair. The President applied a level of fiscal stimulus to the economy that we probably haven't seen since the Great Depression. Given the underlying health of the American economy, would the recession have been far worse otherwise? Maybe. I don't know the answer to that question - and neither does anyone else, to be honest. 2. What were the long term consequences of those actions? That, I think, is the more important question. I have, on occasion, written on this list on the limitations of long term planning. True enough. But there are things that we can see. While I don't think that the entitlement problem is in any sense catastrophic - given recent increases in productivity, it may, in fact, be entirely manageable. But it still _has to be managed_. And recent economic policy has made that immeasurably more difficult, and it's only likely to get worse. The tax code is far less progressive than it was - and I happen to think that's a bad thing. Government spending has shot through the roof, and the war doesn't even _begin_ to explain that. It is certainly fair and appropriate to pay for war spending with debt. That is what Ronald Reagan did, and I think that was appropriate. But _some_ tax increases, or at least holding off on tax cuts, to pay for the war was necessary. The long term damage to America's fiscal health may well be quite significant - and only success in Iraq could possibly make up for that in an evaluation of the Bush Presidency, in my opinion, at least. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! - Internet access at a great low price. http://promo.yahoo.com/sbc/
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