Did Bush Policies help Your State?

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Does Presidential policies impact a state's ability to create jobs? In a Federalist system the States are subservient to the Central (Federal) authority, including policies the Federal level imposes. I do agree that a state can attract investment income & jobs to their state. With that said, I also believe that a President can (working with Congress) have a major impact on all states ability to produce their own G.S.P. I am not able to research a state by state comparison to verify my opinion. This press release does make interesting reading (a month old release, looking back last year). For anyone that likes to compare the "Wonderful 90s" to the evil "Bush Years", it seems the states were losing the last 4 years prior to Bush. Currently, either the Governors or Bush (your choice) have the states G.S.P. back to 98 -levels. It seems in 1997 the trend to lower G.S.P. began & each year dropped, bottomed out in 2001 & has increased every year. The graph only shows data from 1997 forward.

http://www.bea.gov/bea/newsrel/GSPNewsRelease.htm

RELEASE THURSDAY, June 23, 2005

Surprised

ECONOMIES GROW IN ALL STATES IN 2004 Surprised

Prototype Gross State Product (GSP) Estimates
In 2004, strong U.S. real economic growth was widespread; real GSP grew in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to estimates released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.1 GSP is the most comprehensive measure of overall economic activity in each state.
Highlights for 2004
Growth in real U.S. GSP accelerated from 2.8 percent in 2003 to 4.2 percent in 2004; all but seven states shared in that acceleration.
The financial services and information-communications-technology sectors were the largest contributors to growth, and most of the fastest-growing states have large concentrations in one or both of these sectors.

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All I know is that in 1998 I could literally quit a freelance job and find a new one within the day.

Now, freelance work is scarce, and the pay is less.

Where is that on your little chart?

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The chart does show the rate of decline that ensued following Bush taking office has turned around to the levels they were during Clinton's last term.

The chart doesn't show, however, the monies the states are owed for things like border patrol and homeland security that they are owed that Bush hasn't coughed up.

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What did 911 cost in dollars?
The graph does not show the 911 attack and economic havoc it caused in 2001.

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Yeah, trot out 9/11 as an excuse. We've been through that many times here.

I can tell you that my State, Texas, started Bush's term as Governor with a huge budget surplus, and ended his term with a huge deficit (which we are still trying to figure out).

So, no, Bush policies COMPLETELY SCREWED UP my state; and this is YEARS before 9/11.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Yeah, trot out 9/11 as an excuse. We've been through that many times here.

I can tell you that my State, Texas, started Bush's term as Governor with a huge budget surplus, and ended his term with a huge deficit (which we are still trying to figure out).

So, no, Bush policies COMPLETELY SCREWED UP my state; and this is YEARS before 9/11.

Cycloptichorn

That makes me want to crap my pants

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

I can tell you that my State, Texas, started Bush's term as Governor with a huge budget surplus, and ended his term with a huge deficit (which we are still trying to figure out).

So, no, Bush policies COMPLETELY SCREWED UP my state; and this is YEARS before 9/11.

Cycloptichorn

You know where you live better than I,but. I was unable to find yearly budget numbers. I did find state income data.

http://www.bidc.state.tx.us/overview/2-2te.htm#StateProduct

Figure #2 displays Texas Per capita Income as a Share of the U.S. Average. It shows that the per capita has been increasing since 1990. You had a Democratic Governor - Ann Richards 1991 - 94 and she got per capita moving back up. In 1994 a Republican Governor arrived, Bush (W) and the graph shows the sharpest up tick (from 1990- 2003) under his two terms. Bush left a Republican Governor (Perry) in place & it seems Perry is able to keep the per capita at a sustainable level.

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Per Capita income is not a valid measurement of Fiscal Management of the State.

It tells you nothing at all about how badly underfunded our critical services are, including police, fire, and teachers.

Immaterial

Cycloptichorn

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In addition. 9-11 turned out to be a huge boon for the airline companies who were quick to plead poverty, start layoffs and look for handouts.

The following link suggests the economic havoc of 9-11 hasn't been that great a burden.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1153/is_2_126/ai_100729676

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No Child Left behind is giving me a PILE of students that ONLY know how to memorize for standard tests.

Good news is - when the economy is down - the secondary education picks up. Bad news is - we have cut TONS of federal funding for education.

Yech...

TTF

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thethinkfactory wrote:

No Child Left behind is giving me a PILE of students that ONLY know how to memorize for standard tests.

Good news is - when the economy is down - the secondary education picks up. Bad news is - we have cut TONS of federal funding for education.

Yech...

TTF

I guess if you are only letting them study for the tests then that is your failure as a teacher.

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Quote:

I guess if you are only letting them study for the tests then that is your failure as a teacher.

You guess wrong.

You see, NCLB puts the teachers, Administration, and pretty much everyone in the school in between a rock and a hard place.

My mother is an Administrator for a school district here in Texas. Her district consistently scores at the top of standardized tests' range out of districts in Texas. And she tells me that many of the kids are dumb as a brick.

They specifically instruct their teachers to teach to the test. They don't have a choice. The alternative is to lose your funding, and then you can't help anyone at all (as well as losing all your jobs). So what are you supposed to do?

Teach to the test? Or teach for real and take the chance that the students will fail the tests?

Don't make this out to be a cut and dry issue, Baldi, for it is anything but.

Nice to see ya btw, hope everything is well for you and yours.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:
I guess if you are only letting them study for the tests then that is your failure as a teacher.

You guess wrong.

You see, NCLB puts the teachers, Administration, and pretty much everyone in the school in between a rock and a hard place.

My mother is an Administrator for a school district here in Texas. Her district consistently scores at the top of standardized tests' range out of districts in Texas. And she tells me that many of the kids are dumb as a brick.

They specifically instruct their teachers to teach to the test. They don't have a choice. The alternative is to lose your funding, and then you can't help anyone at all (as well as losing all your jobs). So what are you supposed to do?

Teach to the test? Or teach for real and take the chance that the students will fail the tests?

Don't make this out to be a cut and dry issue, Baldi, for it is anything but.

Nice to see ya btw, hope everything is well for you and yours.

Cycloptichorn

I have children in school and I don't see them just teaching the test. They teach them math and how to read a write. If they learn these things then how is it that they would fail the test? The problem is that they don't want to take the chance of the children failing and not getting their funding.

I don't see this a good for the children, I see it as teachers and school districts trying to save their own butts instead of really teaching the children.

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BlaiseDaley wrote:

.... the economic havoc of 9-11 hasn't been that great a burden.

Hee hee, Blaise, you beat me to it.

The secret is out. And I've been holding it in ever since checking some numbers.

911 Has Virtually No Large Effect On the American Economy

You read that right.

Don't tell me about the stock market. Yes, there was havoc on the stock market, but any economist will tell you that short term changes in the stock market don't mean much.

The stock market reopened one week after 911.

The financial blow to the New York City area was fairly substantial, but not as big as people think.

Consider: the Workd Trade Center was right in the middle of the Wall Street area. New York City is the financial center of the world. If anyone is going to suffer a hit from the financial services sector, it will be New York.

Guess what? After 911, New York's unemployment rate went up only 3%.

Think about how much stocks, bonds and financial transactions mean to New York city and environs. Then consider the secondary consequences of stockholders no longer being able to buy second houses, etc. Think of the cars that were not sold to stock traders, the contractors not hired to build stock traders' houses, etc.

Yet, for all that, New York City's unemployment rate went up only 3%.

And New York City is less than 3% of America's population. And the rest of America is not as dependent on stock trading as New York City is.

Hate to shock you, folks, but economically speaking, 911 just didn't affect the country's economy much at all. Two skyscrapers went down in the financial district-but the financial district has blocks and blocks of buildings full of stock traders and bond salesmen who can step right in and pick up the slack.

The reason we let the Republicans get away with blaming 911 for their lousy economic performance is that we were shocked by the circumstances-the fact that terrorists destroyed the building. The horror of that day is etched in our minds. And I don't want to underemphasize the human loss that day. But for all that, the next day, all of America got uup and went back to work, largely unaffected-except in part of New York City.

Ask yourself this-if both those buildings had burned down because of an electrical fire due to faulty maintenance, would we consider that a reason for the national economy to go sour? Of course not. But because of the terrorist angle, we are willing to believe this ficition that the national economy suffered this huge shock.

It did not.

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If 9/11 wasn't an issue then how could a president only in office for 9 months have such a huge effect on things?

Do you all forget the .com bubble burst of early 2000? This also had a huge effect on the economy. Most of the good jobs that people had in that time frame were lost which also had an after effect of lower paying jobs.

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<gosh,K Wiz, this is first time I beat anybody at anything.>
True there was the .com bubble but in the ensuing years peoples overtime has been cut, tax breaks have been given that benefit only a specific segment of the population on top of trying to fund a war and an occupation and jobs are being outsourced to other countries.

To follow up to the NCLB, Baldimo, it might not be the case with your school but the emphasis has changed greatly from an education tilted towards problem solving to an emphasis of passing the standardized tests. Music is gone, P.E. is gone most all arts education of any type is gone from public schools these days. I was shocked at how drastically things had changed from when I attended grade school. Much more than what often gets blamed on teachers.

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Baldimo wrote:

Do you all forget the .com bubble burst of early 2000? This also had a huge effect on the economy. Most of the good jobs that people had in that time frame were lost which also had an after effect of lower paying jobs.

Okay, let's examine this dot.com bubbble burst.

When one thinks of the dot com bubbble burst, one normally thinks of Information and Technologies. That is the hardest hit-all the people who hooked up computer systems who used ot be able to name their price for a jog-supposedly all shriveled up in the "dot com bubble burst".

Okay, some did lose their job. But consider that this is THE industry that is supposed to represent the greatest tragedy, consider the following stats.

According to official NAICS figures:

Information Technologies, full time employees.

1999-504,000
2000-538,000
2001-504,000
2002-455,000

The industry that is supposed to personify the "dot com buble burst" lost a big, fat 83,000 workers over the course of two years. That would be bad if it spread to other industries, but it did not.

83,000 workers? In a nation of 140 million workers, that represents .06% of the workforce. Negligible.

By the way, the output of that industry never did decline. Here are the figures.

Information and data processing

1999-36.7 billion
2000-37.7 billion
2001-41.2 billion
2002-45.4 billion

So the IT industry took a shock, but it did not affect very many people. And the IT industry is supposed to represent the "dot com burst". Some burst. More like a tiny little pop.

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Have you worked in the IT field? I have and lots of jobs disappeared and didn't return.

Where did you get your facts? There was more then money lost in wages, it was also lost in investment.

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Baldimo wrote:

Have you worked in the IT field? I have and lots of jobs disappeared and didn't return.

Where did you get your facts?

These are the official government naics figures, as noted above.

The newest version is available here. It's the GDP-by-industry table, I believe. 1998-2003.

The industry lost 83,000 jobs max as a result of the "dot com burst". I am being generous here. Bush as a whole was such a disaster for the country when he took over that many of the IT jobs lost in 2002 could probably be laid to him, but I'm going to be nice and call them part of the "dot com burst".

Baldimo wrote:

There was more then money lost in wages, it was also lost in investment.

Please note that I also included the dollar output for the industry, which never did decline.

Once again, here are the figures of the output for the industry, in dollars.

1999-36.7 billion
2000-37.7 billion
2001-41.2 billion
2002-45.4 billion

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Just to give you some idea of how good Clinton was for employment as a whole and how bad Bush is, here is the table for the unemployment rate under alan Greenspan's tenure at the Fed.

The chart speaks for itself. Amazing, isn't it?

Note also that the "genius", Alan Greenspan, doesn't look like such a genius unless Bill Clinton is president. Under either Bush, he looks decidedly ungeniuslike.

Fact is, Alan Greenspan is certainly an able man, but this whole "Greenspan Is A Genius" bit was dreamed up by Republicans desperate to lay the credit for Clinton's outstanding performance at the heels of someone else. Anybody else. Just to keep Clinton from getting his just due.

Greenspan a genius? Just another Republican myth, just like the "911 hurt the economy as a whole" thing, which I have just proven to be a myth.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/kelticwizard100/BUnemploymentRateGreenspansTenure.gif

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