"The Cute Fix"-How Bush’s Fiscal Mismanagement Produced a Recession (Scott Horton)

[kpete]

How Bush’s Fiscal Mismanagement Produced a Recession
DEPARTMENT No Comment
BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED January 26, 2008


................

But the cute fix is just what President Bush has in mind. He wants to mail out checks to a large stratum of the economy in a move designed to bolster consumer spending. Economists are anything but agreed that it will serve this end. Much more likely, it will simply magnify the already devastating treasury deficit, which is a key part of the current problem.

Bush doesn’t really intend to do anything to avoid the recession. He is aiming to push it back a few months in an effort to create the public impression that the recession will be the responsibility of his successor. And how are the Democrats responding to this brazen effort to saddle them with accountability for the mess that Bush made?

It’s hard to find meaningful analytical discussion in America’s mainstream media. How could it hope to compete with the latest Paris Hilton story, or some flub-up by an exhausted presidential candidate out on the hustings? Viewers and readers don’t want to be worried by it, they reason. They’re wrong, of course. The level of anxiety and concern among public is high, as is concern and coverage in the quality press around the world. The curious standout is the mainstream media in the United States.

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So the Gilded Age of George W. Bush and Karl Rove winds to its inevitable end, and hardly a whimper is to be heard from those who are being set up carefully for the fall.


more at:
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/01/hbc-90002247

[Richard Steele]

1. K&R

[tanyev]

2. "Bush doesn’t really intend to do anything to avoid the recession"

That's what I've been thinking all along. Just hold it off until he and Laura hightail it out of DC, and then laugh his ass off watching the poor sap who follows him try and clean up the mess. Even funnier for him if it is a Democrat.

[unblock]

3. this notion is a bit silly. a recession cannot be delayed a full year

even with the fed's unheard-of-for-decades 3/4 point cut, the fed still acts far too slowly to have swift effect on the economy, and fiscal policy is notoriously slow due to the nature of the political process and the federal bureaucracy.

what's baked in the cake at this point -- and some think we're already IN a recession -- will largely play out, and what the government does now or in two months will likely only influence the length, depth, and upturn out of the recession, if it even has an impact at all.

of course, i certainly agree that shrubbie doesn't give a rat's patootie about the economy and certainly not poor people. as usual, he only cares about himself, his buds, and rich potential republican donors.

but the recession will be WELL established, maybe even over, before the next president is sworn in. there's really no escaping blame for this one, not that the roves of the republican world won't try to spin it otherwise.

[tanyev]

4. I hope you're right.

Not that I want things to crash, but if they are going to crash anyway, it would be better if it happens before W skips out to Paraguay. But from their perspective, the actual recession is not as important as the public perception of recession. That's what I think they are desperately trying to manage.

[unblock]

5. i think the timing's beautiful from a political perspective

naturally i'd prefer a growing economy, but from a political perspective, people are going to be PIIIIIIIIISSSED in november!

even though i expect the recession to be largely over by then, it will certainly not be out of the news by then. it will keep the republicans home and bring the democrats out in droves!

[RC]

8. How can the recession be over by November when it is caused in large part by

job outsourcing and bu$h's war? Unless something magical is done, we are looking at a full blown depression in its toothy jaws.

[unblock]

9. being out of the recession does not mean we're instantly back to a wonderful economy

being out of the recession just means the economy is back to expanding rather than contracting. without fixing structural problems like the deficit and other things, growth on the other side of the recession will be tepid; but a little tepid growth is all it takes to be "out of the recession".

a depression i really don't forsee. our economy is no longer the thing of beauty it once was, but it's far from being something that even shrub could grind to a halt, despite all his efforts....

[gratuitous]

6. No, they can't stave off the avalanche

Particularly since it's well underway. But their stock-in-trade for seven years has been delay, obfuscation and denial, and this administration can run that game for six months in their sleep. With the connivance of the popular media, which will argue endlessly over minutiae, they can kick this can nine months down the road, no problem. By then, we're so deep into the 2008 general election that nagging questions about all those folks out of work or out of homes or out of money will be buried under the fascinating issue of whether Obama is really black, or whether Hillary is really a woman, or whether Edwards is really something or other.

[unblock]

7. they'll distract and the media will aid and abet, that's for sure

rove proved that they can distract people from a lot of really important issues, but bill clinton proved that people can't be distracted from a sucky economy. that's the one thing people know right up front, they can see when the media's lying.

[Quantess]

10. It should be obvious to everyone that Bush is to blame, not his successor.

But the media will spin things otherwise.

[deacon]

11. There's so much idiotic crap about this, He created the mess and now he needs to fix

his own mess- and, HE wants to be lauded for it- that he is the one to take control when time get rough that he initiated. It's his fault, and what's happening is a product of his economic policies, period.

[El Pinko]

12. Thanks for the excellent article.

nt