The Bush Rosy Tint and the Economy

If you want to see how disengaged the Bush admin is from the reality on the ground -- and the fine art of doublespeak -- take a look at the just released 2009 Economic Report to the President:

The American economy has consistently proven its strength and resilience in the face of shocks such as natural disasters, high energy prices, and the terrorist attacks of September 11. The economy experienced 6 years of uninterrupted expansion, which included a record stretch of 52 consecutive months of job creation. The past year saw this growth cease as several forces that developed over many years in the credit and housing markets converged. ...

Under ordinary circumstances, it would be preferable to allow the free market to take its course and correct over time. But the Government has a responsibility to safeguard the broader health and stability of our economy. Under the extraordinary circumstances created by the financial crisis, the potential damage to American households and businesses was so severe that a systemic, aggressive, and unprecedented Government response was the only responsible policy option.

Notice a few things:

• Even as the ship sinks the captain gives a salute to the "free market" and its glories.
• The captain stretches his arm way around his back and gives himself a solid pat on the back for "heckova job there Georgie!"

The reality is that the Bush admin was late in responding to the housing market problem. Back in early 2007 it was a subprime mess that could have been "contained" if the government had responded quickly. By the fall of 2007 it was a credit crunch which could have been "contained" if the government had recognized that the collapsing housing market was undermining the financial industry. Instead, Bush responded with a pathetic non-starter of a "program" to aid homeowners threatened with foreclosure. A program that "aided" so few that it was negligible, and of course the problem grew until the fall of 2008 when the entire financial market collapsed after the inept "now we intervene" and "now we don't" peek-a-book game that the Bush admin played with the trembling house of cards of Wall Street investment houses and the broader financial industry sitting on rapidly collapsing house prices.

As you wade through this self congratulatory drivel you find things such as:

Sound economic policy begins with keeping taxes low. The tax relief enacted by my Administration was the largest in a generation.

This from an administration which has wiped out 40% of the wealth of the country and left every household roughly $10,000 poorer.

Here is the typical obfuscation and lies:

The Government also has a responsibility to spend the taxpayers’ money wisely. Over the course of my Administration, the rate of growth in nonsecurity discretionary spending has steadily decreased from more than 16 percent in 2001 to below the rate of inflation today. While the financial crisis has required significant taxpayer investments that will increase the budget deficit, we expect that most or all of those investments will be paid back to taxpayers over time.

Translation: The Bush admin cut spending on people so more money could be directed at the military-industrial complex (think Halliburton) to keep the fat cats rolling in dough. And even though the spending was cut, the sudden dam burst of spending forced by the collapse of the economic system will make that look like small potatoes. Bush is like the Cheshire cat with an eternal grin as the world as we knew it fades all around us in the grim horror of the wreck and ruin that he has left behind.

As the report puts it:

Despite the risk that recent events may overshadow the many positive developments of the past 8 years, there have been major policy advances that have improved the long-term prospects of our economy and strengthened its foundation.

So much for the glories of the ideological right. As Pogo said: We have met the enemy and he is us! In short, Bush is the right wing ideologues wet dream of "staying on message" right to the deadly end. The horror is that the ideological right took the country down rather than give up its deadly ideological dreams. And even standing in the smoldering ruins, these fanatics wear rose-tinted glasses that lets them interpret all that remains in a surreal manner. This must be how those poor souls who drank Jim Jones' Kool-Aid must have felt. Right to the end they were being preached the "message" as they could see bodies writhing in pain all around them and Jim Jones kept prattling on about God's love. In Bush's case, this is the glory of "free enterprise" and "free markets" and "deregulation".