Guest Tyler McClelland Report post Posted July 3, 2003 According to the NY Times, President Bush is risking being the first president since Hoover to have negative job growth during his presidency Credit: NY Times. July 3, 2003 Bush's Record on Jobs: Risking Unhappy Comparisons By DAVID LEONHARDT For George W. Bush, the race has begun to escape comparisons to Herbert Hoover. With more than two million jobs having disappeared since Mr. Bush took office in January 2001, he finds himself in danger of becoming the first president since Hoover to oversee a decline in the country's employment. Economists disagree on how much blame, if any, Mr. Bush deserves for the long slump, but even White House aides view the economy as one of the only big threats to his re-election campaign. Now, a turning point could be approaching. The Labor Department will release its jobs report for June this morning, and some forecasters are predicting that it will mark the beginning of a rebound. An increase in the nation's payrolls — the odds of which are roughly even, Wall Street economists say — would be the first since January. Then the real test for the Bush administration will start. Mr. Bush has called the recently passed tax cut the main reason for economic optimism, and administration officials have repeatedly referred to it as the "jobs and growth" plan, part of its official name, to emphasize its goal. "Listen, I'm interested in one thing," the president said during a rally last month in Fridley, Minn., to promote the tax cut. "I'm interested in helping people find work." According to the White House's forecast, the increased consumer spending and business investment from the tax cut, combined with the economy's underlying growth, will easily push Mr. Bush's jobs record into positive figures. Even if the economy merely adds jobs at the average rate of the last 50 years, he will rank roughly in the middle of modern-era Republican presidents, who have held office during weaker periods of job growth than Democrats. But the length of this economic slowdown has surprised almost all economists, and some have begun to say there is a significant chance that the economy will not erase the jobs deficit by the end of 2004. Among the three best-known forecasting firms in the United States, Economy.com puts the chances around 33 percent, Global Insight at 25 percent and Macroeconomic Advisers at about 20 percent. Employment gains would have to average about 120,000 a month for the American work force to return by the end of next year to its size in January 2001. While the difference between positive and negative numbers can be somewhat arbitrary, statistics are likely to play a central role in the speeches of the 2004 campaign, political strategists and economists say. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, has begun summarizing Mr. Bush's economic record as "$3 trillion deeper in debt, 3 million fewer jobs." (While private-sector payrolls have fallen by more than 3 million, the overall decline has been 2.4 million because of government hiring.) Democratic presidential candidates have made a practice of mentioning job losses during Mr. Bush's term. And the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group financed by unions and foundations, plans to grade Mr. Bush each month on how well the job market lives up to the White House forecast. The tax cut "was presented as if it were a jobs plan," said Lawrence Mishel, the group's president. "It should be judged as such." Republicans largely agree. "There's no reason why we should be satisfied with 6 percent unemployment," said N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economics Advisers. He added that the economy's plight was worse than the jobless rate suggested, but that the tax cut was likely to help reduce unemployment by end of this year. The $350 billion plan reduces taxes on all households that make enough money to pay income taxes, among other measures. The benefits go mainly to high-income people, who pay most taxes. Still, Mr. Mankiw said that this summer, when the White House releases its next official forecast, it will probably reduce predicted job growth over the next year and a half from the 5.5 million it forecast early this year. Economic growth has been slower in the last few months than officials expected, and companies typically hire new workers only after executives are convinced that a healthy recovery has taken hold. Administration officials have attributed the economic torpor to the 1990's bubble in stock prices and business investment, the accounting scandals in corporate America and the uncertainty caused by the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Outside economists overwhelmingly agree that the hiring slump, which is the worst in 20 years and the longest since before World War II, is not chiefly Mr. Bush's fault. "He was unlucky," said John H. Makin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research group in Washington. "And I would say I don't think the bubble was the fault of Democrats. People got overexcited. It just started to unravel in the fall of 2000." The main argument is whether Mr. Bush has done all he could to mitigate the slowdown. His aides say that without the three tax cuts passed since early 2001, the jobs decline would have been even worse. By reducing taxes on capital gains and dividends, the latest measure will also increase investment, encouraging companies to expand, the aides add. Many Democrats argue that there are more effective ways to stimulate the economy than tax cuts focused on the wealthy. They have suggested sending money to state governments, which are now cutting programs to close deep budget deficits of their own, and giving larger tax cuts to middle-class and poor families. Similar measures are one reason — along with chance — that the six presidents with the best records of job creation since 1933 are all Democrats, some people in the party say. "It seems to me that we should be putting money into the hands of people who will spend it immediately," said Representative Pete Stark, Democrat of California and a member of the Joint Economic Committee. "The worst part is creating this huge deficit and giving it to the 1 or 2 percent of Americans who won't do anything but increase their wealth with it." People from both parties agree, though, that Mr. Bush's re-election chances will be improved if his record on jobs falls somewhere between Gerald R. Ford's and Ronald Reagan's, and well away from Herbert Hoover's. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest kkktookmybabyaway Report post Posted July 3, 2003 Well, we know what Democrats will be pulling out next year... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest JMA Report post Posted July 3, 2003 Well, we know what Democrats will be pulling out next year... The Dems will do whatever they have to to win. You must know that. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Spicy McHaggis Report post Posted July 3, 2003 Tyler, instead of arguing with you about tax cuts... I want to know why tax increases a) help the economy and b) increase jobs. They have suggested sending money to state governments, which are now cutting programs to close deep budget deficits of their own, and giving larger tax cuts to middle-class and poor families. Maybe those state gov's should cut their staff size instead of cutting education and letting prisoners out early. Mr. Davis took a $2 million surplus and turned it into a $23 billion deficit. Maybe he should take a cut in pay. Oh, and poor people don't pay taxes. Redistributing income is called communism. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Tyler McClelland Report post Posted July 3, 2003 Never said tax increases help (although Clinton raised taxes slightly on the highest 1% and his economy wasn't too shabby) the economy, but tax cuts and substantial spending don't mix. Running up the deficit is just plain stupidity (as you're seeing in California, but much of that can be credited to the energy "crisis", not Davis). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Tyler McClelland Report post Posted July 3, 2003 Oh, and poor people don't pay taxes. Redistributing income is called communism. They pay plenty of taxes. They're called payroll taxes. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Spicy McHaggis Report post Posted July 3, 2003 Davis caused the energy crisis. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Tyler McClelland Report post Posted July 3, 2003 (edited) ... Edited July 3, 2003 by Tyler McClelland Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Jobber of the Week Report post Posted July 3, 2003 Are you really an idiot? Davis had nothing to do with it Huh? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Tyler McClelland Report post Posted July 3, 2003 Er, yeah, never mind. Regardless, I'd blame Enron and the other power conglomerates more than Davis. Davis didn't do the price fixing all by himself. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest kkktookmybabyaway Report post Posted July 3, 2003 You didn't answer the question Jobber -- are you really an idiot? Just because you present facts doesn't really answer the question at hand... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Tyler McClelland Report post Posted July 3, 2003 I wasn't referring to Jobber. I was misinformed as to Davis' role, so shoot me. You still can't discount the fact that the energy regulators are 100x more responsible for the disaster than Davis, he's just that much shadier of a bastard. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest kkktookmybabyaway Report post Posted July 3, 2003 Shoot. My bad Jobber. Spicy's the idiot. Who said I discounted anything regarding this issue? Actually I blame everybody for Calif.'s energy problems. The guv Big Energy The people... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Tyler McClelland Report post Posted July 3, 2003 The people aren't quite as much to blame; they just got the bills and said "WTF?!?" At least they eventually stood up to Big Energy. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest kkktookmybabyaway Report post Posted July 3, 2003 If the people of a state don't want any power plants built, but yet demand more energy consumption, then you reap what you so, in my opinion... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Crazy Dan Report post Posted July 4, 2003 I can give a lil insight to the energy crisis... being I lived through it.. Many things can take the blame: -Deregulation of the energy markets, which was handled poorly with too many loop holes -Being the most populous state in the USA, and with more and more families moving in, the energy use also went up along with all the new people. -Gray Davis really dropped the ball here, and should take a good portion of the blame, but I do think that this would have happened with a Republican govner - It also didn't help that many energy companies pounced on the opportunity to jack up the prices -Shaddy business, which also had a hand in the crisis, possibly holding energy back, while lying about having not enough energy. -Lack of power pants to meet the need. -People wasting energy - business's leaving their lights on, even though no one is using the office, which also wastes a lot of energy. This was a situation which has much more factors. One cannot place his blame on one source, but at times it makes you feel better when you can bitch about our incompetant gov. and cry even more when the other choice in the last election ran one of the worse ran capaigns I have ever seen, and gave many of us a worse candidate than Davis. God, I love living in California. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
