Bush tax cuts: a complete economic failure

[Jeffersons Ghost]

The Bush Tax Cuts and the Republican Cult of Economic Failure

There's no such thing as a free lunch, and there's no such thing as an honest case for extending the Bush tax cuts. Ten years of hard data prove they were a complete failure. They did not work while Bush was in office and they did not work during the first two years of the Obama administration. No wonder the Congressional Budget Office says that the GOP's proposed extension of tax cuts to the rich will reduce future economic growth.

Under George W. Bush, U.S. GDP growth averaged about 2.1 percent a year. Since the end of World War II, the country has never experienced such low economic growth during an eight-year period. And if you exclude the war demobilization of 1946, when U.S. government spending fell by two-thirds and the GDP fell by 10.9 percent, Bush had the worst economic record since Herbert Hoover. During FDR's first two terms, when the country remained mired in a Depression, GDP growth averaged about 6.3 percent a year.

There is no way to make Bush's performance look good. Even if you cherry-pick the data, by excluding fiscal year 2008, when GDP growth was zero, economic expansion was anemic. During Bush's first seven years, it averaged about 2.4 percent, the worst rate in half a century. And what was the source of most of that economic growth? Homeowner equity extraction. Bush could point to one sector where growth outpaced that of all prior administrations: Residential mortgage debt. It almost doubled, from $5.1 trillion to $9.8 trillion, between 2001 and 2006.

Of course, these numbers understate the magnitude of Bush's failure, since the full effects of the 2008 financial meltdown were not felt until 2009 and later. Though Bush has left the White House, his tax cuts have remained in place. What's completely missing is any evidence that his tax cuts did anything to boost the economy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-fiderer/the-bush-tax-cuts-and-the_b_781419.html

[kentuck]

1. The only reason any Democrat or Republican would vote to extend...

is purely political. They think it will be to their political advantage to vote for it or they think it will be their demise if they vote against it. There is no rational reason to vote to extend the Bush taxcuts.

[Winterblues]

5. Funny how such common sense is so lacking among elected Representatives..

And a dollar to a doughnut Obama falls prey to the politics of it all..He will allow them to be extended and possibly if Republicans ask, even enlarge them a bit..That is the way Democrats compromise.

[Turbineguy]

2. Economic growth was never the idea.

It was about transferring wealth by taking money from the middle class and destroying democratic government.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

4. exactly... that's also the definition of a depression

[Bigmack]

3. I figure this is the tell-tale...

if the tax cuts for the rich stay... Dems still have majorities in both houses until next year... it means there is no hope. It means they are all on the same side... Repub and Dem.

No nuance, no "yeah, buts", no bullshit.