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THE DAILY MIS-LEAD
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BUSH TWICE TRIES TO MISLEAD AMERICA ABOUT THE ECONOMY IN 24 HOURS
Within a span of 24 hours, President Bush twice attempted to mislead the
American people about the economy and his tax policies. On Friday, the
president said, "Unemployment dropped today to 5.7% [which] is a positive
sign that the economy is getting better."
But the president didn't add that the unemployment drop occurred not because
the economy was getting better, but because continued weak job growth led
309,000 people to stop looking for work. As one nonpartisan economist said,
"Most of these dropouts would still be in the labor force working or trying
to work if the economy were doing better," The president made no mention
that only 1,000 total jobs were created in December - a "shockingly low
number," where most economists had expected job growth to be around 100,000
to 150,000 for the month. 33 months after the beginning of the recession,
this recovery is distinguished from all previous cycles of job contraction
and resumed growth since 1939, according to the Economic Policy Institute,
for not having fully recovered job levels to those above the
pre-recessionary peak within 31 months from its start.
The following day, the president touted the same economic policies that
helped create the unemployment crisis. Despite the bad economic news, he
said, "Tax relief has got this economy going again," and bragged, "every
American who pays income taxes got a tax cut." His use of the phrase "income
tax," however, was tailored to divert attention from the millions of
low-income American taxpayers (who pay payroll tax but not income tax) who
received nothing. Bush's 2001 tax cut completely excluded 31% of all
families in America. Similarly, Bush's 2003 tax cut completely excluded 31%
of all taxpayers - including one million children of military families.
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