Bush: ‘I’ve Always Sided With The People’ On Tax Cuts And Spending
Bush: ‘I’ve Always Sided With The People’ On Tax Cuts And Spending
Today, President George Bush held his final press conference, during which “he became passionate in defense of some of his policies.” When the topic turned to the economy, Bush vigorously defended his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, adding that he “will defend them after my presidency as the right course of action”:
There’s a fundamental philosophical debate about tax cuts. Who best can spend your money, the government or you? And I’ve always sided with the people on that issue.
Watch it:
We’re not going to quibble with the notion that Bush didn’t know how to spend taxpayer money. However, he decided he knew how to best spend China and Japan’s money, which he borrowed in order to finance his tax cuts for the wealthy and the war in Iraq, driving the federal debt to historic heights.
As the Washington Post noted today, Bush “has presided over the weakest eight-year span for the U.S. economy in decades”; the federal government “had a modest budget surplus when Bush took office,” but his administration ran up deficits “even as the economy was growing at a healthy pace.”
It is worth remembering that when Bush took office, it was projected that the federal government would run a $710 billion budget surplus in 2009, and that the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities calculated that Bush’s tax cuts accounted for 42 percent of the fiscal deterioration between 2001 and 2008. If Bush was indeed siding “with the people,” he had an awfully funny way of going about it.
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6 Responses to “Bush: ‘I’ve Always Sided With The People’ On Tax Cuts And Spending”
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The Republicans are always talking about income tax simplification because they want a regressive flat tax to expand their base and limit the size of the middle class. We can do better: We can offer a two-bracket system such as the one they had in Sweden before the regressive VAT, where if you make less than 10% above the median wage, you pay 0% taxes. If you make more than that, for each dollar more you pay a flat rate. That’s the fairest tax there is.
Also, why can’t we go back to a long-term and short-term split capital gains rate? And eliminate the capital gains discount for hedge funds so we don’t over-leverage again?
January 12th, 2009 at 1:52 pmWho best can spend your money, the government or you? And I’ve always sided with the people on that issue.
For the past 3 years the American people have been telling Bush that spending our money in Iraq is not what we want.
January 12th, 2009 at 3:11 pmI guess he was listening to “the people” at ExxonHalliburtonKBR.
Yep Georgie Boy you sure have listened to us on spending,just look at the above graph, that tells it all.#2,You cannot say it any better unless you stick in his approval ratings of 30%.
January 12th, 2009 at 5:54 pmIs thee any such thing as a fiscal conservative?or is it just plain old HYPOCRITE? Morons, they all are greedy stinkin MORONS!
January 12th, 2009 at 5:56 pmChris: What do you think the proper long-term debt level is, as a percentage of GDP?
January 12th, 2009 at 7:15 pmWhat a sad, pathetic person he is. Is it that he is simply stupid, overly medicated, or is it the dry-drunk syndrome? How delusional can he be?
January 13th, 2009 at 7:19 am