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Wildfleurs -> RE: Bush Has a Good Economic Record (9/3/2008 7:01:54 PM)
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The problem is that the devil's in the details....
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ORIGINAL: celticlord2112
Bush Has a Good Economic Record
Heresy, I know, but here are some stats:
]- Economic growth. U.S. output has expanded faster than in most advanced economies since 2000. The IMF reports that real U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an average annual rate of 2.2% over the period 2001-2008 (including its forecast for the current year). President Bush will leave to his successor an economy 19% larger than the one he inherited from President Clinton. This U.S. expansion compares with 14% by France, 13% by Japan and just 8% by Italy and Germany over the same period.
Part of how GDP is calculated is through government spending including spending for wars. Despite having a republican for the last eight years, government spending has gone from 1,789.2 billion to about 2,730.2 billion with the largest increase in spending in Defense. That is obviously one of the reasons why our GDP has grown.
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Income and wealth distribution. The latest World Bank estimates show that the richest 20% of U.S. households had a 45.8% share of total income in 2000, similar to the levels in the U.K. (44.0%) and Israel (44.9%). In 65 other countries the richest quintile had a larger share than in the U.S.
Comparing income distribution in 2000 to other states doesn't exactly paint an accurate picture. Lets look at some trend analysis thats a bit more recent as reported in the NY Times:
"While total reported income in the United States increased almost 9 percent in 2005, the most recent year for which such data is available, average incomes for those in the bottom 90 percent dipped slightly compared with the year before, dropping $172, or 0.6 percent.
The gains went largely to the top 1 percent, whose incomes rose to an average of more than $1.1 million each, an increase of more than $139,000, or about 14 percent." *
- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/29tax.html?ex=1332820800&en=fb472e72466c34c8&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
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- Employment. The U.S. employment rate, measured by the percentage of people of working age (16-65 years) in jobs, has remained high by international standards. The latest OECD figures show a rate of 71.7% in 2006. This was more than five percentage points above the average for the euro area.
Again, international comparisons aren't helpful or valid to find out what is happening in America. To see where we are going (i.e. are things getting better or worse?), we have to look at trends over time. When Bush came into office in 2000 we were at a 4.1% unemployment rate and in 2007 we were at 4.5%. ** Not a positive trend.
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The U.S. unemployment rate averaged 4.7% from 2001-2007. This compares with a 5.2% average rate during President Clinton's term of office, and is well below the euro zone average of 8.3% since 2000.
The problem isn't the statistics but rather the question you are asking doesn't match up with the statistics you are providing. Bush has a good economic record compared to what? Europe. Or are we going to compare change in basic economic indicators over the time he was president to really look at the impact of his policies. Comparing us to other countries simply tells us how we compare to other countries who aren't doing that well, but it doesn't tell us how we are doing currently, where we used to be, and what the change is between the two.
* Original research can be found at: http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/
** Bureau of Labor Services data
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