From: "Jerry Lobdill" <lobdillj@charter.net>
To: "Jerry Lobdill" <lobdillj@charter.net>
Subject: FW: 'Dishonest' Would Be An Understatement
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 12:39:15 -0600
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ECONOMY
'Dishonest'
Would Be An Understatement
Almost six
months ago to the day, President Bush made a Labor Day visit to Ohio, a state
which has "lost
more than a quarter-million jobs," including 166,000
manufacturing jobs, since 2001. During a speech to workers there, he said
he would "appoint an
assistant secretary [of Commerce] to focus on the needs of manufacturers,
to make sure our manufacturing job base is strong and vibrantWe have a
responsibility that when somebody hurts, government has got to move." Yet,
six months later, the country has lost another quarter million manufacturing
jobs (and Ohio alone has lost another 9,000
manufacturing jobs) and the Administration has not only failed to offer a
policy prescription, it has not even appointed the Commerce department
specialist. And yesterday, the situation hit a boiling point: the Bureau of
Labor Statistics released its monthly Mass Layoff report which showed
"there were more
mass layoffs in January 2004 than in any previous January for the
nine-years that such records have been kept" a report that prompted outrage
from Sens. Schumer, Corzine and Stabenow. The promise to address the
manufacturing situation with new policies and a new manufacturing czar and then
failure to follow through is only the latest economic contradiction from the
Bush Administration. What follows is a list of the most brazen and calculated
economic distortions:
MYTH 1 WE CARE ABOUT JOB LOSS: President Bush, echoing an oft-repeated sentiment
from the Administration, said recently that "we care
about our fellow citizens - we want to make sure somebody who's hurting has
a chance to succeed in life by working." Yet, just a few weeks ago, the
President personally signed a report wholeheartedly endorsing U.S. job loss to
overseas outsourcing, claiming that it was a "good thing" and just an
unpreventable side-effect of free trade. But as Paul Krugman
notes, free trade is "viable only if it's backed by effective job creation
measures and a strong domestic social safety net" both areas the
Administration has repeatedly slashed. For the last three years, the
Administration has tried to cut more than $1
billion out of job training programs, while underfunding
its own education bill by $27 billion in essence robbing workers of the
education/training tools they need to compete. At the same time, the
Administration has cut funding for a plethora of health care and safety
net programs. See more on the Administration's policies
that are discouraging job and wage growth.
MYTH 2 WE CARE ABOUT THE MIDDLE CLASS: The Administration has
claimed it wants to "help the middle class." Yet, just this week, the
President refused to distance himself from Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's
proposal to severely reduce Social Security benefits for ordinary people in
order to protect the Administration's massive tax cuts for the wealthy.
Greenspan said cutting Social Security as opposed to reducing the tax cuts was
necessary to deal with growing deficits, "effectively
embracing the lunatic notion that cutting taxes will generate more
government revenue" and that protecting the rich should come before
protecting the middle class. In 1966 Greenspan said "deficit spending is
simply a scheme for the
confiscation of wealth." Now, it is Greenspan and the White House using the
"scheme" of deficits to justify Social Security cuts and confiscate
wealth from the middle class to finance tax cuts for the wealthy. See more
background on the current
state of Social Security.
MYTH 3 WE ARE CUTTING TAXES FOR AVERAGE PEOPLE: As a presidential candidate
in 2000, then-Governor Bush said "the vast majority of my tax cuts go to
the bottom end of the spectrum." It was an oft-repeated sentiment for
the next three years, with the Administration saying that its tax bills would
be "an achievement
for families struggling to enter the middle class." Yet, the data now
clearly shows the Administration's tax cuts were overwhelmingly skewed towards
the wealthy: By 2010, the top 1% - who make an average of $1 million - will
have received more than $1
trillion in new tax breaks, and will have received over half of all the
Bush tax cuts ever passed (this might explain why four in five Americans say
they have felt no tax relief). To combat this embarrassing truth, the
Administration resorted to disingenuous rhetoric, citing deceptive averages to
claim that its most recent tax proposal would give "91 million taxpayers
an average tax cut of $1,126." Yet, these averages were artificially
inflated because they included huge tax breaks to millionaires. In reality, the
middle fifth of all households received just $217, with 83% of Americans
getting less than the "average" all while the Administration is effectively
raising taxes on the middle class. Most shockingly, the President himself
admitted that he knew he was misleading Americans by claiming the tax cuts
helped average people. As he asked his economic team when they were pondering
even more tax cuts, "Haven't we already
given money to rich people? Shouldn't we be giving money to the
middle?"
MYTH 4 TAX CUTS WILL NOT CAUSE DEFICITS: Facing questions about the
massive size of his tax cuts, President Bush assured the nation that "we can
proceed with tax relief without fear of budget deficits, even if the
economy softens." When the tax cuts passed, the surplus evaporated and
record deficits hit. Instead of fessing up to its distortion, the
Administration blamed the recession for the deficit. Then, realizing that it
couldn't take that track because it had said there would be no deficits
"even if the economy softens," the President said "this
nation has got a deficit because we have been through a war" claiming
the deficit was caused by increases in defense/homeland security spending
needed after 9/11 . Yet, hard data
and the Administration's
own budget documents show that tax cuts not defense/homeland security
spending - were the single largest
factor in creating the deficit. Desperate for some explanation, the
President said, "I
remember campaigning in Chicago, and one of the reporters said, would you
ever deficit spend? I said only -- only in times of war, in times of economic
insecurity as a result of a recession, or in times of national emergency."
Yet even this explanation was not true as Tim Russert noted, "we have
checked everywhere and we've even called the White House as to when the
president said this, and it didn't happen."
MYTH 5 WE CARE ABOUT THE UNEMPLOYED: President Bush has said,
"I'm
worried about those who are unemployed." Yet, with 760,000 scheduled
to lose their unemployment benefits this month, his Administration refuses to
demand that its allies on Capitol Hill stop blocking a House-passed bill that
would extend
unemployment benefits. Adding insult to injury, the Administration's
key economic officials visited parts of the country hardest hit by
unemployment, yet refused
to actually meet with any unemployed workers.