It's Time To Learn Why High Taxes Kill Us

[1SICKLEX]

So what about Bush inheriting a Recession from CLinton? CLinton got to ride the DOT COM BOOM which was a false boom, and the bubble burst at the end of his term, and Bush inherited it and got us out of it.

What say you about that?

and


I guess when your a dem its always someone elses fault

Bush didn't get a recession. TODAY is a recession. Bush got a blip on the radar and still got a surplus his first year in office.

Clinton did sign the Gramm leach Bliley act, which let investment companies and banks make love to one another instead of keeping it seperate, thus some of the mess we have today.

[Vteckidd]

Bush didn't get a recession. TODAY is a recession. Bush got a blip on the radar and still got a surplus his first year in office.

??????????????

The U.S. economy shrank in three non-consecutive quarters in the early 2000s (the third quarter of 2000, the first quarter of 2001, and the third quarter of 2001). According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which is the private, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization charged with determining economic recessions, the U.S. economy was in recession from March 2001 to November 2001, a period of eight months. However, economic conditions did not satisfy the common shorthand definition of recession, which is "a fall of a country's real gross domestic product in two or more successive quarters," and has led to some confusion about the procedure for determining the starting and ending dates of a recession.

Using the stock market as an unofficial benchmark, a recession would have begun in March 2000 when the NASDAQ crashed following the collapse of the Dot-com bubble. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was relatively unscathed by the NASDAQ's crash until the September 11, 2001 attacks, after which the DJIA suffered its worst one-day point loss and biggest one-week losses in history up to that point. The market rebounded, only to crash once more in the final two quarters of 2002. In the final three quarters of 2003, the market finally rebounded permanently, agreeing with the unemployment statistics that a recession defined in this way would have lasted from 2001 through 2003.



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May 05, 2004, 8:50 a.m.
Truth Matters
The last recession began under Clinton, despite rewrites on the Left.

Media Matters for America is a new website (mediamatters.org) "dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation." It's been developed with the zillions of tax-deductible dollars that George Soros and others contributed to the leftist Center for American Progress. It's run by a confessed liar, former conservative author David Brock, who has admitted that he knowingly lied in his book about Anita Hill, and has apologized for his reporting on Bill Clinton's sexual misadventures.

So far the work from Media Matters isn't very impressive. But what should we expect when the Left is put in charge of a quest for truth?

The first major article posted on the Media Matters website is an attempted exposé of the often-heard conservative claim that the last economic recession began during the Clinton administration — or, in other words, that it was already underway when George W. Bush took office in 2001. The article painstakingly traces the history of this claim through numerous statements by Bush administration officials and conservative commentators, presenting all this as a "successful three-and-a-half year media campaign" that has led to polling results showing "62% of Americans think the recession began under Clinton."

The claim that the last recession started under Clinton is absolutely true. To deny this is not only to blame Bush for a problem he didn't cause, but to deprive him of the credit for fixing it with effective policies — which is exactly why the Left is so eager in this case. Here, however, are the facts:

The unemployment rate bottomed at 3.8 percent in April 2000, and started deteriorating steadily from there (during the Clinton administration).

The fed funds rate — the overnight interest rate administered by Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve — peaked at 6.5 percent in 2000, and had to be lowered in an emergency move on January 3, 2001, "in light of further weakening of sales and production" (during the Clinton administration).

As the chart below shows, GDP growth fell off a cliff in the third quarter of 2000 (during the Clinton administration). Despite the shock of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, growth started to revive in the fourth quarter of 2001 (during the Bush administration).




ECONOMIC DATA CONFIRMS SLOWDOWN BEGAN UNDER CLINTON

Economic Statistics Confirm U.S. Economy Was Shrinking While Clinton Was In Office. “America went into recession long before the terrorist attacks of September 11th. … The new figures suggest … that the economy grew more slowly in … 2000 than was previously thought: GDP rose by 3.8% (compared with last year’s estimate of 4.1% and an initial figure of 5%).” (“Unwelcome Numbers,” The Economist, 8/3/02)

Market Indicators Confirm Recession Started On Clinton’s Watch. According to the Council of Economic Advisors, “it was widely recognized that the economy was weak coming into 2001.”

* The NASDAQ peaked on March 10, 2000;

* The S&P 500 peaked on March 24, 2000;

* The Dow Jones peaked on January 14, 2000;

* Manufacturing employment started falling in August 2000;

* Industrial production started falling in July 2000; and

* Manufacturing trade and sales started falling in April 2000.

(Council Of Economic Advisors, Talking Points, 9/20/02)

Congress’ Joint Economic Committee Says Signs Of Economic Slowdown Were Apparent In Mid 2000. “By mid-year 2000 … signs of an economic slowdown began to proliferate; it became apparent that an economic slowdown was underway. A number of key economic and financial indicators provided evidence of such slower growth and suggested that future growth could weaken. A brief summary of important elements of this evidence, for example, would include the following:

* Real GDP slowed from a robust 5.6 percent annualized growth rate in the second quarter of 2000 to 2.2 percent and 1.0 percent in the third and fourth quarters, respectively, before rebounding modestly to 1.2% in the first quarter of 2001.

* Key components of GDP such as real consumption expenditures slowed after mid-year as real income growth moderated, stock market values fell, employment gains lessened, and consumer confidence stalled and then deteriorated. Movements in retail sales generally corroborated these developments.

* Gross private investment also contributed significantly to this general slowdown with most key investment categories registering actual declines by the fourth quarter and advances of non-defense capital goods (ex-aircraft and parts) orders falling sharply after mid-year (on a year-over-year basis).

* The index of leading indicators trended down after January 2000.

* Employment advances slowed dramatically after mid-year. Gains in total non-farm payrolls, for example, averaged about 256,000 per month for the 2 1/2 years prior to mid-year 2000 and 44,000 per month after mid-year 2000. The average workweek also decreased after mid-year.

* The manufacturing sector also has weakened significantly since mid-year 2000. Industrial production, capacity utilization, the Natural Association of Purchasing Managers index, as well as manufacturing employment and workweek have all registered significant declines since mid-year 2000.

* Financial equity markets began to deteriorate about mid-year 2000 as well.

In short, there can be little doubt that a significant economic slowdown or retrenchment began about mid-year 2000 in the last quarters of the Clinton Administration.” (“Assessment Of The Current Economic Environment,” United States Congress Joint Economic Committee, 7/01)

Clinton’s Chairman Of Council Of Economic Advisors, Joseph Stiglitz, Said Recession Started During Clinton’s Tenure. “It would be nice for us veterans of the Clinton Administration if we could simply blame mismanagement by President George W. Bush’s economic team for this seemingly sudden turnaround in the economy, which coincided so closely with its taking charge. But … the economy was slipping into recession even before Bush took office, and the corporate scandals that are rocking America began much earlier.” (Joseph Stiglitz, “The Roaring Nineties,” The Atlantic Monthly, 10/02)

Stiglitz noted that during the Clinton Administration “the groundwork for some of the problems we are now experiencing was being laid. Accounting standards slipped; deregulation was taken further than it should have been; and corporate greed was pandered to ….” (Joseph Stiglitz, “The Roaring Nineties,” The Atlantic Monthly, 10/02)

Clinton Administration Grossly Overestimated Strength Of The Economy. “Hidden in the morass of statistics, there is proof that the Clinton administration grossly overestimated the strength of the economy leading up to the 2000 election. Did the federal government join Enron and WorldCom in cooking the books? … Most startling, the Commerce Department in 2000 showed the economy on an upswing through most of the election year, while in fact it was declining.” (Robert Novak, Op-Ed, “Sunny Clinton Forecast Leaves Cloud Over Bush,” Chicago Sun-Times, 8/8/02)

Drop In Investments In First Half Of 2000 Contributed To Recession. “A plunge in investment that began in the last half of 2000, along with the declines in equity markets, was an important force in the recession.” (Council Of Economic Advisers, “Strengthening America’s Economy: The President’s Jobs And Growth Proposals,” 1/7/03)


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