link (Emphasis added.)
Mr. Bush and Mr. Greenspan have now exhausted almost all of their stimulus options. The economy is on its own, and it is not clear whether it is on track for a stronger recovery in the second half of the year..
No wonder, then, that Mr. Bush won't acknowledge the bad news on jobs. Doing so would imply a need to re-examine the policies that have led to this point, something he is not willing to do. Given the facts, his intransigence is appalling: according to a new research report by Economy.com, an independent provider of economic data and analysis, the $700 billion swing from surplus to deficit under President Bush accounted for nearly two percentage points of economic growth a year. But it has generated economic gains of just over one percentage point.
The main reason for the crippling discrepancy is that the tax cuts were mostly handed out where they did the least good - that is, lavished on the people least likely to spend the largess. The reduction in the tax rates, the largest of Mr. Bush's tax boons, provided only 59 cents of economic stimulus for every dollar of lost tax revenue. The tax cut for dividends and capital gains produced 9 cents of stimulus for every forgone dollar. (Did someone say, "Deficits as far as the eye can see"?) In contrast, the economic bang for a dollar of aid to state governments is $1.24. Yet such assistance accounted for only 3 percent of the total cost of Mr. Bush's fiscal policies
Presumably "economic gains" means an increase in income, and presumably as a total amount of all income- which, if that's what meant, means that John Edwards' pitch to those of us who are trying to make ends meet is spot on.
It is also clear, though that Bush's tax cuts have been every bit as effective as a terrorist attack at destroying the average Americans' prosperity.
Dahlia Lithwick has a good op-ed piece today, too:
It started with Attorney General John Ashcroft's declaration, shortly after 9/11: "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists." This was an early attempt to couple disagreeing on civil liberties with abetting terrorists. And while I'm not reflexively opposed to the entire Patriot Act, two provisions do serve more to quell protest than terrorism.
One section invented a broad new crime called "domestic terrorism" - punishing activities that "involve acts dangerous to human life" if a person's intent is to "influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion." If that sounds as if it's directed more toward effigy-burning, or Greenpeace activity, than international terror, it's because it is. International terror was already illegal.
A second provision, already deemed unconstitutional in one federal court, was used to prosecute Sami Omar al-Hussayen, a Muslim graduate student at the University of Idaho who was charged with using the Internet to offer "expert advice or assistance" to terrorists by posting fatwahs and hyperlinks to a Hamas Web site. He was acquitted by a jury this summer, partly because the judge warned jurors that speech - even speech advocating the use of force or the breaking of laws - is constitutionally protected, unless directed toward inciting imminent lawless action.
Ashcroft, of course, in pushing these provisions (not to mention the Gitmo fiasco and the torture memos) has either been incompetent at understanding constitutional law or has been a malicious enemey of the constitution. His failure to even make progress against Zacharias Moussaoui suggests the former, but whichever it is, it's irrelevant: this regime must go, because of the wrongful acts they have committed against the fundamentals of the American way.
They have attacked our freedom, and they have attacked our prosperity. And if they can retain office because of "terrorism," then truly, the terrorists will have won.
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