The US Economy

Giving the poor a tax break, and not giving the rich even a token break--which is what 3% amounts to--is against the principles I believe this country was founded on. The percentages of difference in the breaks accounted for fairness--but leaving the more affluent out completely would be wrong--

The poor got the largest break. The rich recieved a small one. Why begrudge successful people a measley 3% tax break? Are they to blame for the financial problems of poorer people?

We let people flood into this country costing us billions in healthcare and red tape, into a country that is already short of jobs. There are always going to be someone that does without, what is the fix besides redistribution of wealth?

Who is going to create jobs for all of the immigrants coming here for a better life? Soon they will be coming here for nothing except to recieve money the government takes from us to give to them, and some current non-tax payers already recieved a tax refund(redistribution).

Well Sofia and BrandX, at least you can take some solace that the improving economy will likely sop up a lot of the deficit so many have been whining about, taking still another complaint away from the naysayers in our nation.

The sad thing is that--in light of the soviet-style rewriting of Reagan's economic legacy--I have no reason to believe that any long-term lessons will be learned from Bush's successful handling of the economy. Liberals will continue to bleat on that tax cuts cause deficits, hurt the poor, enrich the rich, cause global warming and halitosis, and forget your birthday.

Reagan came into office and cut taxes and the economy improved, Clinton came into office and raised taxes and the economy improved. I think the only lesson to be learned is that ascribing presidential policy re taxes or anything else has very little to do with what happens in the economy. those wishing to give credit or demonize presidential policy for the state of the economy are, at best. pissing in the wind as the economy does whatever the economy does in spite of who is president. If you need to give credit to Bush for the current (hopefully upturn) go for it but realize its a spurious corelation.

Scrat, The GDP going up 7.2 percent doesn't mean that the tax base is going up. It only means that productivity has gone up - not employment. People must first work to earn wages which then pays taxes. That ain't happening yet. We're all hoping it will within the next quarter or two.

And listen to dys; he knows of what he speaks. Presidents do not create jobs nor effect the economy all that much. "Pissing in the wind" sounds about right.

Tart, in that individual home ownership in the US is fractionally below 70% and US consumer spending amounts to around $7 Trillion per year, fact pulls the math right out from under your argument. Utopia doesn't exist; life is a bell curve. In the US, the median of that curve is extraordinarily high by global cpmparison, and the standard of deviation from that median is likewise extraordinarily low. No matter how you slice the numbers, no populace on the planet has a greater proportion of owned homes, automobiles, telephones, televisions, or pets. Certainly there are those less fortunate than the norm, just as there are those who are more fortunate. The extemes are just that; extremes, and abberant counterexample to the vastly greater overall norm. Equal opportunity in no way entails or even implies equal result. Life ain't fair, its merely equitable.

True, but the spread in prosperity between rich and poor is bigger in the States than in other prosperous countries. That means that, even though on average the American is richer than pretty much everyone else, those 35 million Americans who according to your Census Bureau live in poverty are worse off than the equivalent poorest proportion of the population in other countries - even countries that are less rich overall. 35 million poor and 9 million hungry Americans are an awful large set of "extreme" "counterexamples" of "those less fortunate" ...

Okay, okay -- the U.S. is a country where some can gather at a restaurant for a $50.00 steak dinner and discuss how bad the economy is (or, for that matter, how good it can get).

Yeah, and I know of some people willing to treat you to a half bottle of expensive martini.

That's only your stock broker. He's trying to loosen you up for the kill.

nimh, And that includes over 42 million without health insurance in our country.

Hey, Now!!! One or two things at a time, there, c.i. ! :wink: With the geopolitical situation improving and the economy expanding, we'll get to healthcare reform. Its turn is coming up soon. I figure eventually we'll even get around to legal reforms, too, but as most legislators are lawyers, I see that issue as one the momentum of which is not much subject to near-term accelleration . We're good, but we can't do it all at once.

So the Dems and media who discuss the Clinton economy are all liars? And, why would Clinton use "Its The Economy, Stupid", blaming Bush 1 for the economy, and inferring he could make changes to improve it?

Sofia, Go back in history and see how many presidents "created" jobs. What government does is tax income of private commercial enterprise and their workers. Go ask any businessman or woman if the president helped them create their business. After you do this study, please come back and tell us what you find.

"New Deal" c.i.

Craven, How so?

Government creating jobs.

The Interstate Highway System ,,, Eisenhower

The Space Program ... Kennedy

The Works Progress Administration ... FDR


None of the jobs derived from any of those existed untill a president created the circumstances required to bring them about.

It's coming up next? Thing is, it was the admin's choice not to have it come up before. Argument: too expensive. But the measures the admin did take - tax breaks and the like - turned a $236 billion surplus in 2000 into a projected deficit of $374 billion this year. That was an awful lot of money to squander that could have been used for healthcare reform.

Now we have to wait and see how long it will take for the promised economic kickstart, that the tax breaks are promised to deliver, yields something akin that $236 billion surplus again ... and then still we are only back at the point where, last time round, the Bush people said that there wasn't enough money to do health insurance for everyone ... so when will it come up?