Why No One Pays Attention to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
We got exactly the policies it advocated from 2001 to 2008 and look what we ended up with--miserable growth, budgetary profligacy, and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. And the Chamber still thinks George W. Bush's policies are the ones that will restore growth. Is that nuts or what?
http://www.slate.com/id/2233606/
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Rather than saying any
Rather than saying any particular set of policies are "the ones that will restore growth", doesn't it seem more plausible that growth tends to resume after a while even under various sub-optimal sets of policies?
Seriously ...
I've been lurking here for a while Bruce, and I actually agree with you about the VAT being a better tax than income, payroll, or capital gains and that Bush was not a real conservative. However, I don't think you can seriously blame the "Bush tax cuts" for anything but a small part of the deficit, most of that was due to the big fall in revenue after 9/11 plus the temporary increase in military spending.
The subprime/banking collapse was a policy that had at least some bi-partisan support. In this case, the divide was less by party than branch. Congress encouraged, even pushed, for loans to be made that were simply not sustainable. And the finance community was happy to oblidge, since it paid well now, and should something go wrong, the Fed/Treasury would step in and save the company. The executive branch pushed many times under both Clinton and Bush to increase the oversight of Freddie and Fannie, but congress (as always) didn't want to take away the precious pork-bowl.
Finally, of course the economic growth numbers look bad when you measure from the peak of an unsustainable boom to a large bust. I expect better from you Bruce.
Commerce Department is Dept of President
Data published by the Commerce Department is useless - it merely supports the agenda dejour of the administration. Data is always revised months after its initial release to reflect true conditions - long after the media pay attention. They always report great GDP numbers - suggesting improving economic activity, while the masses are still forced to use bad credit personal loans and high interest rate credit cards to get by.