2008 Woodie Awards
It's the Tax Cut, Stupid!
Mike Meno
Issue date: 12/10/03 Section: Opinion
The results are in and our economy is surging. After five consecutive months of growth, the country's gross domestic product rose a stunning 8.2% in the third quarter, officially qualifying as the strongest quarterly increase in nineteen and a half years.
For some time now, the economic policies of the Bush administration have come to serve as the primary target of censure by the Democratic Party, which has long banked its chances for the White House on the hope of a continued recession. Rep. Dick Gephardt mirrored the sentiment of his peers at a presidential debate in September when he described President Bush's economic plan as "a miserable failure". Their most common grievance has been with the President's tax cuts, which Democrats claim benefits only the selective few. Hardly a day goes by without evocation of that infamous phrase: "tax cuts for the rich", always "tax cuts for the rich".
Yet under the leadership of this "miserable failure," just came the most stunning turnaround in the nation's economy since 1984. Under this "miserable failure" the DOW Jones and the S&P 500 are at 18-month highs and NASDAQ reached the 2,000 mark for the first time in two years. In November, the New York based Conference Board reported its index of consumer confidence at its highest level since September 2002 and The Institute for Supply Management issued its manufacturing index at its highest level since December 1983. U.S. manufacturing and productivity have achieved numbers unseen in two decades, foreign markets are buying American products at an ever-growing rate and 270,000 new non-farming jobs have been created in the past two months. Does that sound like "a miserable failure"?
Now admittedly, it is going to take more than a single quarter to make a complete recovery, but economists are in agreement that these recent trends will not slow down anytime soon. As far as President Bush and his detractors are concerned, the latest growth has again proven a very simple fact: tax cuts work. No matter what other explanations people will try to place on the economy's upturn, the positive effect of Bush's tax policy cannot go unnoticed. The Congressional Joint Committee on taxes has estimated that tax cuts alone provided $61 billion in fiscal 2003 and will add another $149 in 2004. And USA Today is already saying that next year's tax refunds are expected to rise 27%.
For some time now, the economic policies of the Bush administration have come to serve as the primary target of censure by the Democratic Party, which has long banked its chances for the White House on the hope of a continued recession. Rep. Dick Gephardt mirrored the sentiment of his peers at a presidential debate in September when he described President Bush's economic plan as "a miserable failure". Their most common grievance has been with the President's tax cuts, which Democrats claim benefits only the selective few. Hardly a day goes by without evocation of that infamous phrase: "tax cuts for the rich", always "tax cuts for the rich".
Yet under the leadership of this "miserable failure," just came the most stunning turnaround in the nation's economy since 1984. Under this "miserable failure" the DOW Jones and the S&P 500 are at 18-month highs and NASDAQ reached the 2,000 mark for the first time in two years. In November, the New York based Conference Board reported its index of consumer confidence at its highest level since September 2002 and The Institute for Supply Management issued its manufacturing index at its highest level since December 1983. U.S. manufacturing and productivity have achieved numbers unseen in two decades, foreign markets are buying American products at an ever-growing rate and 270,000 new non-farming jobs have been created in the past two months. Does that sound like "a miserable failure"?
Now admittedly, it is going to take more than a single quarter to make a complete recovery, but economists are in agreement that these recent trends will not slow down anytime soon. As far as President Bush and his detractors are concerned, the latest growth has again proven a very simple fact: tax cuts work. No matter what other explanations people will try to place on the economy's upturn, the positive effect of Bush's tax policy cannot go unnoticed. The Congressional Joint Committee on taxes has estimated that tax cuts alone provided $61 billion in fiscal 2003 and will add another $149 in 2004. And USA Today is already saying that next year's tax refunds are expected to rise 27%.
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