It’s so good to be right. Especially when I was right and hundreds of highly paid, high-powered pundits were wrong.
According to these pundits, the Bush economy is a relentless, ravenous beast that steals money from the middle class, destroys jobs and will never, ever get any better until America comes to its senses and elects a Democrat.
These pundits, including Paul Krugman of The New York Times, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Howard Dean of the nine dwarves were wrong, I was right and here’s proof (from the AP, Oct. 30):
“The economy grew at a scorching 7.2 percent annual rate in the third quarter, the strongest pace in nearly two decades.”
Nor does the good news stop there.
“The nation’s payrolls grew by 57,000 in September-the first increase in eight months.”
This in the face of a pre-existing, chronic economic downturn, the disastrous stock market crash of 2000, the economic chaos after the World Trade Center vaporized and the War on Terror. Who gets the credit for economic recovery, record growth and 57,000 new jobs?
“Near rock-bottom short term interest rates, along with President Bush’s third round of tax cuts…economists say.”
These tax cuts, by the way, were the source of much Democratic angst. Pelosi and her ilk were reduced to rabid rage when the cuts were enacted.
They gibbered about the “irresponsibility” of the cuts, screamed about their “unfair nature” and warned that these cuts were sure to ruin the economy.
Krugman has based an entire school of economics around the thesis that tax cuts cause recessions.
Dean has sworn that, if elected, he will repeal every Bush tax cut, raising taxes for the middle class.
The Democratic economic plan is this: We’ll raise taxes on the middle class and they’ll have more money. In the minds of Democrats, somehow taking more money from people will result in more money for people.
How this is supposed to work is never fully explained.
Bush’s plan was this: We’ll give people tax breaks, and they’ll have more money. This is what Democrats sneeringly refer to as “Reaganomics.”
In the minds of Democrats, taking fewer taxes from a family will somehow cause them to have less money.
Again, how this is supposed to work is never fully explained.
Of course, Democratic incoherence on economics has a long and robust history.
Just in the last decade we’ve seen Clinton taking credit for an economic boom which began a year before he was elected.
We’ve also seen Democrats blaming Bush for an economic slowdown which began two years before he was elected. During Bush’s campaign, he pointed to that slowdown as evidence of Democratic incompetence.
His critics claimed that Bush was “talking down the economy.”
In the minds of Democrats, George Bush could wreak economic ruin with but a single speech. Not only that, but his words could somehow reach backward through time to cause an economic slowdown fully a year before they were spoken.
Apparently, Bush’s vast cosmic powers know no limit.
Now that the economy is growing again, the febrile imagination of the Democrats will have to invent new and more spectacular lies to counter the good news.
First, they’ll claim that a recovery isn’t happening. Next, they’ll claim that there won’t be new jobs created. Then, they’ll deny that Bush had anything to do with the economic recovery.
Finally, they’ll deny that there was ever any economic slowdown at all.
The Democrats have been peddling economic snake oil since before my grandfather was born.
In all that time, they have refused to learn the most basic principles of economic development. That is why they are wrong, and I am right.