sabbadoo32

Obama Is Bad for the Economy - Barron's

Eli,

You're rehashing the same arguments for the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.

We gave the top 1% a lot of money in 2001 and even more in 2003. Either they didn't spend it, OR they're not enough of them to run this economy in the way the political economists (that's a scary two words) assured us they would. They didn't even come close.

It's very clear that for the past 5 years our economy was driven by MIDDLE-CLASS consumer spending based on increased debt-whether it be credit card, HELOC or whatever.

It's clear that this has been the weakest recovery. Weakest job growth. Weakest period of consumer sentiment while in the midst of a "boom." Negative household savings. And the list goes on.

But it's been very strong in divisive political bombast, which is good for those that sell hot air.

Were the top 1% theory true, then we should have given the stimulus to the them instead of the middle class, right? We gave the money to the middle class because we knew they'd spend it, and quickly at that. Were household debt not so high I'd imagine they'd have spent more of the stimulus.

We do need to keep taxes low, and fair.

But the past 8 years have allowed us to see how supply-side economics really works. It has been proven that it's a tactic for temporary revival of the economy and a very effective political tool. It is not a rational grand strategy for managing the republic.