APP - The Bush Recession... Much worse than the Carter Recession was!

Superfreak said:
What cracks me up is those who believe BUDGET surpluses = ACTUAL surpluses

That and the belief that the trillions in PROJECTED surpluses somehow disappeared overnight when Bush was elected rather than due to, oh I don't know... the RECESSION.
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What isn't even funny is those that talk about BUDGET surpluses and PROJECTED surpluses to support tax cuts that really amount to deficit spending AND revenue reductions while claiming to be concerned with the deficit.

Now, tell me again what your position was on the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.
 
TurdFerguson said:
What isn't even funny is those that talk about BUDGET surpluses and PROJECTED surpluses to support tax cuts that really amount to deficit spending AND revenue reductions while claiming to be concerned with the deficit.

Now, tell me again what your position was on the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.
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they spurred economic activity that reduced unemployment to less than 5%
 
Superfreak said:
What cracks me up is those who believe BUDGET surpluses = ACTUAL surpluses

That and the belief that the trillions in PROJECTED surpluses somehow disappeared overnight when Bush was elected rather than due to, oh I don't know... the RECESSION.
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Not the, minimal in comparison, "RECESSION" but, oh I don't know.... tax cuts in a time of war? $830 billion and climbing wasted at last count. Then let's throw in another $3/4 trillion+ in emergency funds just for kicks.
 
belme1201 said:
Compare apples to apples, oranges to oranges. Whatever system you use to calculate the deficit or surplus, using the SAME method, compare, without semantics, the Clinton numbers to the bush numbers.
Regarding your 2nd paragraph, I made no claims about the deficit other than stating the fact that when he came to office the bush I budget was in effect until the first Clinton budget was adopted in '94 without a single GOP vote. Compare the results of that budget with bush Supply Side budgets. If job growth is a guage, the ball game ended a long time ago. The 10 year moving average in early 2001 was 23%, by the beginning of 2009 it had fallen to not quite 3%, 'nuf said? Can you name the last GOP President to present a balanced budget to Congress and when the GOP became deficit hawks? I seem to remember their din in the bush/Iraq years was deficits were either unimportant or irrelevent.
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1) My point was not that Bush was better. So comparing the two is irrelevant to my post. My post was to point out that you are incorrect in stating that Clinton had surpluses when he left. He most certainly did NOT.


2) Looking at job growth for the decade preceding 2001 is disingenuous. The 1990's job growth was due to the boom in tech/telecom/internet. That created massive new opportunities. You are thus comparing a boom cycle to a recessionary one. They do not compare.

3) Congress passes the budgets. It was a combination of the REP led Congress and Clinton that created the balanced budgets of the late 1990's. Again, they are JUST BUDGETS. It is the ACTUAL results that matter.

4) Can you name the last President to preside over a fiscal year in which we actually LOWERED our nations debt year over year?
 
Robert Reich is probably the biggest lefty economist of all, even he knows tax cuts work.
He's for stimulus big time and argues against the false all or nothing tax cut card the turbo-libs flaunt too much.
When pinned down he knows what we know, taxed at 10% not 20% the average Joe spends more.
 
belme1201 said:
Sorry, Clinton's unemployment was at 3.4% when bush took office, 5% is an INCREASE of about 30%. Some spur.
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WRONG again. It was at 4.2%. I linked the actual data and you STILL got it wrong.

Again, you are comparing the PEAK prior to the tech bubble bursting and pretending we would be able to sustain those levels.

Second, you are comparing the PEAK to a RECESSION... again look at the data... once the country came out of the recession, unemployment in 2006-07 was back around 4.4%.... until the economy started sagging again in mid 07.

Next, the unemployment rate is a LAGGING indicator. We will be out of this current recession for months prior to the unemployment rate ticking down.

If you want to cherry pick numbers, compare Bush's first five months to Obamas.... unemployment went from 4.2 to 4.6 under Bush.... an increase of about 9.5%. Under Obama it went from 8.1 to 9.4... an increase of 16%.

OMG Bush is better than Obama!!! See how stupid it is to cherry pick data like that?
 
Econbrowser
Analysis of current economic conditions and policy

August 03, 2009
Comparing the Current Recession and the "1980-82 Recession"

At least one observer has argued that the current recession is not as bad as that of the 1980-82 recession, when those two separate recessions (1980Q1-1980Q3; 1981Q3-1982Q4) are considered as one (see [1] [2]). Here is my interpretation of this assertion, updated to use the latest GDP data, and normalizing (log) GDP on the recession start dates.

mull11.gif


Notice that, using the WSJ mean survey forecast from early July, the current downturn will exact a bigger (percentage) output loss than the 1980Q1-1982Q4 recession; if we assume the current recession trough ends up being 2009Q2, then the cumulative loss relative to previous peak will be 9.6 percentage points, while that for the "1980-82 recession" will be 2.5 percentage points.

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2009/08/comparing_the_c.html
 
Topspin said:
Robert Reich is probably the biggest lefty economist of all, even he knows tax cuts work.
He's for stimulus big time and argues against the false all or nothing tax cut card the turbo-libs flaunt too much.
When pinned down he knows what we know, taxed at 10% not 20% the average Joe spends more.
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Who around her ever said tax cuts never work? It is not black and white like you seem to belive. IN some situations tax cuts work... in some they dont! Hell, if we cut taxes to 0, would that work?
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Name one other time in US History when taxes were cut in a time of war?
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Did the economy pick up steam after those cuts or not? Yes, it did.

That said, tax cuts WILL increase economic activity in the short term. In the long term, you must have corresponding spending cuts to make the tax cuts sustainable. This is where Bush failed completely.
 
tinfoil said:
they spurred economic activity that reduced unemployment to less than 5%
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this is partially incorrect. While they did help economic activity and they did reduce the unemployment rate, they did not get unemployment back under 5%. The insane practices in the mortgage markets (where government, wall street, the mortgage industry and individuals all share the blame) are what falsely stimulated the economy to the point where unemployment finally dipped back under 5% in 2006/07.
 
Something else I found interesting while reading about the 80 recession.

The recession came at a particularly bad time for banks due to a recent wave of deregulation. The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 (DIDMCA) had phased out a number of restrictions on banks' financial practices, broadened their lending powers, and raised the deposit insurance limit from $40,000 to $100,000 (raising the problem of moral hazard).[8] Banks rushed into real estate lending, speculative lending, and other ventures just as the economy soured.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1980s_recession
 
Topspin said:
Inflation (1)

1979 11.3%
1980 13.5
1981 10.3
1982 6.2
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The main reason for the 80 recession was the fed clamping down on the money supply to get inflation under control.

Well that and having to bail out the banks and S&l because of deregulation.
 
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