by Mark Silva
President Bush arrived in office to face a recession, and many economists say he is facing another on the way out. So the way Bush confronts what he is now acknowledging as an "economic slowdown" could join the war in Iraq as a pillar of his legacy.
Addressing the Economic Club of New York on Friday, Bush uttered the word "recession" only once, as an ill that he "inherited" entering office in 2001. And as he has for months now, Bush confronted the storms brewing in the American economy -- rising gas prices, slumping stocks, a mortgage crisis and a credit crunch -- with an unrelenting assurance that everything will work out.
"I'm coming to you as an optimistic fellow," the president said. "I've seen what happens when America deals with difficulty. I believe that we're a resilient economy, and I believe that the ingenuity and resolve of the American people is what helps us deal with these issues. And it's going to happen again."
As he spoke, stocks were plunging on word that the venerable Wall Street firm Bear Stearns was receiving an urgent bailout to prevent its collapse. Some have faulted the president -- a product of Yale, the Harvard Business School and a well-heeled oil family who secured his own personal fortune with the sale of his interest in the Texas Rangers baseball team -- for a certain aloofness from the crisis at hand.
While Bush insists that he has acted swiftly to confront the current crisis, winning $150 billion in tax rebates that will be mailed to taxpayers in early May, critics say Bush is resorting to the debt-building, tax-cutting tactics that will do little to help ordinary workers.
See the rest of the story in today's Tribune:
Democrats maintain that a more aggressive investment in alternative sources of energy and housing development are necessary to revive an economy already in the early stage of a recession. "As long as the president stays in his ideological straitjacket ... we're not going to deal with the problems caused by this economy," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). "It seems that the president is on a different economic planet."
Gas question resurfaces
For weeks, Bush has struggled to avoid what he considers a dangerous overreaction by the government without seeming out of touch with ordinary Americans. This tension surfaced in a White House press conference Feb. 28.
A reporter asked, "What's your advice to the average American who is hurting now, facing the prospect of $4-a-gallon gasoline, a lot of people facing. ... " Bush interrupted, "Wait, what did you just say? You're predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline?"
"A number of analysts are predicting," the reporter replied.
"That's interesting. I hadn't heard that," the president said. "Yes, I know it's high now."
Gas hit $4 a gallon Friday in some parts of Hawaii and California.
At the end of his address to the Economic Club on Friday, the president faced a similar question: "Gasoline is selling for $4 a gallon in some parts of the country, but food prices are also rising very fast -- grain prices, meat prices, health-care prices. What can be done about it?" Bush was asked.
"I recognize economies go up and down," Bush replied, "but it's important for us to put policy in place that sends a signal that our economy is going to be strong and open for business ... not doing something foolish during this economic period."
Election issue
Bush spent much of his speech arguing against stronger action recommended by some in Congress. The merits of his position aside, if Bush and fellow Republicans appear insensitive to the plight of anxious Americans as a recession engulfs the economy, that could spell trouble in the November elections, analysts say.
Concern over the economy has already eclipsed the war on the campaign trail. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) stumped at a gas station in Philadelphia on Friday to tout her plans for spurring the economy, including investing $150 billion in "clean energy" and demanding that oil firms invest in it as well.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) this week co-sponsored legislation proposing a new Housing Security Program to provide "meaningful incentives for lenders to buy or refinance existing mortgages" and convert them into stable fixed mortgages.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has been pushing for tax cuts and reducing excessive government spending.
The president's plan for long-term growth -- making the tax cuts enacted during 2001 and 2003 permanent -- has only exacerbated the nation's debt, critics say. The accumulated national debt was $5.77 trillion near the end of Bush's first year in office and now stands at $9 trillion. The White House says it will reach $9.65 trillion by the end of Bush's second term. The cost of paying the interest on that debt will amount to $260 billion next year.
In the long run, the costs of Bush's two greatest initiatives, the war and the tax cuts, could be merging.
"The president continues to convince himself that inaction is the cure-all for the economic problems hurting hard-working Americans," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Friday. "We need a solution."
• 
• 
• 
Comments
Don't blame me, I voted for Gore. Blame all those intelligent Americans out there who wanted somebody they could have a beer with for president. See what it got you? It is always amazing to hear ordinary folks who embrace the Republicans claiming that party stands for their values. At the time of Bush's first election family values, anti-abortion, anti-gay, no taxes, limited government was the mantra that ruled the day and got Bush into office. These people still line up to wash Bush's feet.
Posted by: GW | March 15, 2008 10:27 AM
Critics of President Bush are Democrats. Nancy Pelosi left town for 2 weeks with doing nothing on FISA protection because she and the other Democrats don't care that AlQuaeda is spying. The Democrats owe their souls to the Trial Lawyers Asssociation and the campaign cash they get.
Also, they passed the House with $18 billion in taxes on oil companies that means it will cost us an arm and a leg at the pump.
Then, they raise all our taxes by throwing out the Bush tax cuts to pay for the children and other socialist drivel. Freedom Watch says this bunch will cost us $3,025 more a year in taxes but after all we're getting socialism--we must be grateful for spending more of our money on government.
In 08 if we're lucky we won't elect Jackasses including Rezko and Rev Jeremiah Wright in the person of Barack Hussein Obama.
John McCain is looking better with every negative liberal Dem proposal.
Wakeup liberals join the GOP. Jerry White, Springfield, IL
Posted by: Jerry White | March 15, 2008 10:45 AM
"winning $150 billion in tax rebates"
I understand you are just quoting what you are told however, I wish everyone would call it what it is and stop telling us they are "rebates". These are NOT rebates. Any time a store has given me a rebate they did not come to me the next year and ask for a portion back. Like before, you will pay taxes on this next year. Please call them what they are a deferment, NOT rebate.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 15, 2008 12:12 PM
Well not voting for McCain is a very easy choice. Once he shared his opinion that it was foolish for Bush to heavily ramp up military spending for this long term warm in Iraq and cut taxes at the same time. He has back pedalled on that now to get the right wing to back him.
We can't afford to continue to ignore our own country while we dump billions on wars in other parts of the world. We need a hard-nosed politicians that truly examines the costs and benefits of actions against the reality of what we can spend.
Bush was just fine doubling the national debt but we are now so in hock with China as to be much more at risk for financial troubles then the continually trumpeted risk of terrorists. Perhaps if the wannabe's didn't see fit to play military games supporting dictators in foreign countries we wouldn't engender so much hatred and loathing...
Posted by: vmcgreen | March 15, 2008 12:22 PM
To lessen an earlier recession Bush said to spend. He was wrong.
To lessen a next recession Congress says to spend. They are right but it isn't enough.
Posted by: whatnow | March 15, 2008 12:40 PM
The United States of America will go on Bush's resume as yet another one of his failed businesses. It's the Chinese propping him up this time...even the Saudis have given up on him.
Nothing like voting in the lowest common denominator.
Posted by: DD | March 15, 2008 1:14 PM
Wow!
* Two recessions under Bush/republican rule...
* 4,000 American dead and counting from a war based on blatant outright lies...
* A TRILLION dollar tax INCREASE. (surely you conservatives did not think the deficits your heroes ran up is free money did you?)
* A housing market in collapse --- why? Ideological greed (look the other way is the doctrine of Bush and his apologists while this was happening). Ideological denial (deny that anything is wrong to keep the perception that corrupt conservatives know what they are doing - they don't).
And we are supposed to trust an old angry 'has been' like McCain? Who promises one hundred more years of war and policies that will make his "leadership" nothing more than a Bush 3rd term? No thank you. We as a country cannot afford anymore of their failed dogma. Plus the good senators health is an issue with his history of cancer and other ailments. Besides wasn't it the Bush apologists who said he was too angry to effectively lead?
I will take the future President Obama. He inspires courage, not fear. He inspirates, not obfuscates. The American people will take it from there.
Posted by: Neocon | March 15, 2008 1:57 PM
"Critics of President Bush are Democrats." Uhm, I'm an Independent, who actually voted for his first term. [ GW, feel free to toss a punch. I deserve it. ] I really don't see, what is so hard to understand here.
We've lost millions of high-paying jobs to be replaced by low-paying ones.
Our companies are flying oversees --- not expanding, moving.
We spend some $3 billion a week in a country and war with no end in sight.
We seem more interested in passing laws to spy on our own citizens, than for their well being.
And we engender a culture of fear and hate against our own or other peoples.
Really, I don't know about you, but I was not voting for this, when I voted for him.
Posted by: wolf | March 15, 2008 7:52 PM
Yes, these seem like likely legacy points, plus destruction of Constitutional rights.
Nice legacy.
Posted by: C.Morris | March 15, 2008 9:44 PM
Wake up, you loony libs. Don't you know this whole mess is Bill Clinton's fault?!
Posted by: Radian | March 16, 2008 12:47 AM
Bush might have a problem expressing him self, but his policy makes a lot of sense.
Implementing pro growth policies (i.e. keeping marginal tax rates low, lobbying for lower tax rates on businesses, lowering tax rates low on Capital gains, opening markets for US goods etc.) will definitely attract capital from around the world and it will encourage US companies to do business in the US (more jobs for the middle class...).
The amount of tax that IRS collected on Capital Gains quadrupled since the President lowered it in 2003. This just proves that lower tax rates encourages the flow of capital and results in higher tax receipts.
Should we listened to the President at the beginning of his term we would have been digging for our own oil and not rely on our friend in Venezuela.
His Presidency went through many economic disasters, and he weathered them all. 9/11, Corporate Scandals, Tech Bubble Crash, Katrina, Post-9/11 Airline troubles. And still he had 4 years of strong equity markets, consistent job market, low unemployment, narrowing budget gap (until this slow-down kicked in) despite (I should say "as a result of") his tax cuts.
It's ironic to listen to Reid, Schumer and Co. criticizing Bush's disastrous economy while ignoring the last 4-5 healthy years. Just like the don't forget to remind you that Bush hasn't make us safer after 9/11 (we had 30 terrorist attacks on our soil, didn't we...?), while claiming that the war on terror is nothing more than a Bumper Sticker.
*****************
I'll finish my words with a statement that Senator Charles Schumer said during a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Terror Policy in 2004.
***"There are times when we all get in high dudgeon. We ought to be reasonable about this. I think there are probably very few people in this room or in America who would say that torture should never, ever be used, particularly if thousands of lives are at stake."***
This just proves you that the Democrats will do anything to undermine our President, even it means going against their own believes.
Posted by: moe | March 16, 2008 1:56 PM