End of an Error — Very Weak Economic Growth
In an effort to do some counterprogramming against the BushCo legacy tour, we’ll look at the real legacy — from the Washington Post: 
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Check out Ford, Bush I, & Bush II’s job growth compared to every other President since JFK.
Jimmy Carter: Lookin’ good!
also check out the weird tilde-shaped dip of Reagan and Bush… the first dip is the moment of readjustment as wealth starts flowing upward.
Boy once and for all proof to the Wingnuts call It’s Clintons fault
I wish you would stop putting these facts right out in our face….I can’t refute you and need to move to a different post
Based on December’s job numbers Bush will have created 350,000 jobs/yr in the 8 years he’s been “president.” That’s really pitiful. The change in unemployment is around -3.5%, very Hoover-like.
Wow, even the growth period between W’s 2 recessions looks positively anemic. I guess that goes along with the wage stagnation.
BushCo, raping the country for two generations. Let’s get us some Jeb next – yeah!
This growth and job creation during the Bush years was higher than other modern economies in Europe but was less than India and China.
I have to ask what policies would have been better? It is easy to criticize but I am confident you have no solutions.
How about not destroying the economy? That would have been a good policy. No?
Bush just could have taken the fiscal policy playbook from Clinton and that would have been better.
He could have cleared brush in Crawford the whole time. That would have been a good policy.
Had we known what was going to happen, brush could have been trucked in for him to clear.
How about not cutting taxes as we head into a war?
How about balancing a budget once in a while?
How about increasing fuel efficiency standards and actually reducing our dependence on foreign oil?
And I didn’t even break a sweat.
Mike the Torturer,
I have to ask what policies would have been better?
OMG, are you REALLY this stupid? I mean, you can’t be, right? You’re starting to be Palinisque.
Can your mind even consider that no Iraq war would have been a better policy?
How about not cutting taxes as we head into a war? The tax cuts helped keep the economy going after the 75% bust in NASDAQ, the 20% loss in the stock market in the 2000-2002 time frame.
How about balancing a budget once in a while?
Ok, I agree how about where would you cut the budget? Revenues are not the problem.
How about increasing fuel efficiency standards and actually reducing our dependence on foreign oil? Don’t make me laugh too hard. You guys are the one to keep all outer continental shelf sources and ANWR off the table.
And I didn’t even break a sweat. And you did not use your brain either.
Mike the Torturer,
I have to ask what policies would have been better? I don’t support torture except when I read the disjointed and uninformed posts on this site. It is torture to see so many ridiculous comments.
OMG, are you REALLY this stupid? I mean, you can’t be, right? You’re starting to be Palinisque. I know I won this argument when you use the word stupid, I will debate you or anyone on this site anytime anywhere and win easily. Please stay anonymous and uniformed.
Can your mind even consider that no Iraq war would have been a better policy? The intelligence was wrong-agreed. Ask Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Bill Clinton, they all wanted Saddam removed and the weapons out. The whole world thought there were weapons.
You guys need new talking points, the old ones are not working very well.
Hey Mike, come back when you can actually address what people have proposed here and you can wrap your mind around 1) Opening up ANWR has nothing to do with fuel efficiency of anything, 2) tax cuts added to the deficit as did the spending for the war and 3) revenues are certainly a problem if they don’t cover your expenses.
Mike the Torturer,
RE #15: You have clearly supported torture in your previous posts. Are you now renouncing the use of torture under any circumstances?
Revenues are not the problem.
More Palinisque brilliance. Revenues were not the problem under Clinton, but repubs and conservatives make them a problem when they cut taxes and increase spending simultaneously.
The whole world thought there were weapons.
More rewriting of history. There were UN inspectors in Iraq at the time that couldn’t find the weapons. The world knew the intel Bush/Powell were pushing was garbage – everybody knows Bush and the repubs lied to get into that war – they didn’t have a UN vote that they had initially promised because they knew that they would lose.
Unlike your old discredited repub talking points which are based on misinformation and lies, our talking points are based on the truth, which doesn’t change and is why we don’t need new ones.
Each time a Republican took office, we lost jobs and when nthe Dems took over they went up again. Other then Eisenhower, the same is true for the GDP.
If you are referring to when they took office, then yes, correct observation, except that Truman had a rough start, but nice recovery (as did Regan). Clinton, though, what a nice, almost straight-diagonal line upward (the only blip being a very slight tick down, just before the mid-point).
The point is understood, though.
The stats do show that Clinton’s job and income growth was more broadly based and benefited more people than Reagan’s… Clinton raised incomes by almost the same amount as Reagan, but spread it out over more people (3% more jobs created).
The lesson is that GDP rises under almost any president… you have to work really hard to knock GDP growth off its historic norm (like Bush did). But what you can control via policy is how many people benefit from the prosperity.