The nation’s slumping economy is now the No. 1 concern of voters, notes a Washington Post article. “The virtual halt in job growth, the climb of oil prices above $100 a barrel, the New Year’s stock market tumble and the continuing mortgage crisis have fueled fears of recession and crystallized the nation’s growing economic anxiety,†the article reports.
Exit polls in New Hampshire showed that the economy was the top concern of both Democratic and Republican primary voters.
Meanwhile, Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke (in photo) talked of need for “decisive†action to head off the economic slump.
Expect the economy, jobs and health care to figure larger in the primary debate in coming weeks.
22 Comments
I would expect this to be bad for Republics. Also a bit bad for any Senator since they are in some ways a part of it.
Like the guy with only a hammer for a tool (so everything looks like a nail), the Republics are gonna trot out more proposed tax cuts for the rich.
Anyone know of a party that has held the WH and Senate, when the country was in recession?
I’d like to see any tax cuts be revenue neutral. So, if they want to continue to give it to corporate America, they have to take it from the little guy, or vica versa.
Under the current administration there are only 2 solutions, more tax cuts and more wars. Remember when republicans criticized Democrats for tax and spend policies? Now we borrow and spend. Doesn’t make much sense, but that’s the republican way.
It truly looks as if the next generation will have it worse maybe even much worse than the last.
Thanks alot Republicans.
Time for a cat nap, wake me up when the recession is over.
There has always been economic ups & downs. The news media like the recession words. This gives their democrats friends a chance to fix things for the worst.
Anymore when I see “tax cuts” I remember confronting Rep. Tiahrt at a town hall meeting and his explanation of the Tax cut and why I ended up pay at the end of the year. “By telling employers to only hold out 15 cent of instead of 25 cents for every dollar for income tax. It left that 10 cents left over in your pocket. You now had more money in your pocket, this allow you to be able to spend more and it stimulated the economy. It worked the way it was plan as indeed the economy was stimulated”.
When I pointed out that was not a tax cut, that at the end of the year you still owned the 10 cents on every dollar. He just said “but it did stimulated the economy!”.
That’s the problem with “creative financing “ yes it becomes easier to reach the heights. But there is little once there to keep you from falling to the depths of Hell.
The White house’s solution sounds like the solution our own Governor J. Finny purposed. It basically means taking the money from your left pants pocket and placing it in your right. You know will have more money in your right pants pocket! That should make you feel better off, but it does not mean you are. It just fools you a bit longer but by the end of the year you still do not have any more money.
Oops . . . I said on another post that the S&P 500 was down 3 points for the year and the Dow had an anemic 2 percent rise for 2007?
That was this morning.
Now the Dow is back to absolutely flat. An entire year of investing and . . . nuthin’.
When you RepubliCONs have to work an extra five years before you can retire, remember it was your vote for WORST PRESIDENT EVER that made it happen . . .
All the illegals went back to Mexico for Christmas, things will pick up when the F&V start to ripen.
Wow. Racist AND not funny.
Nice two-fer, JimBob.
Well, I don;t think I am a RepubliDON, though I did vote for the current President. I don;t follow investment trends or fashions. My return for 2007? 30%. All in the stock market. Thank you.
This Paul Krugman editorial speaks to the tax cut solution that Bush always proposes regardless of the problem. Did anyone else note that this same editorial appeared in the Wichita Eagle – right next to Cal Thomas. A couple of days later, Brent Castillo was on top of Maureen Dowd. Strange days, indeed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/opinion/07krugman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Check out the graphics on Krugman’s blog where he compares Clinton to Bush on a number of economic and job indicators. We used to be doing pretty well; now, not so much.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
Steven,
Krugman’s data are interesting. I would hope those interested would “follow the link”.
I was also interested in his take on the (apparently believed set in stone) cut in the overnight rate to be approved by the Fed later this month. In general, he is correct that such a rate cut makes sense in stimulating the housing market, given the long life of the debt, as opposed to the “business stimulation” arguments. While the current subprime mortgage mess has sucked a lot of cash from the credit markets, a cut in the overnight rate to stimulate business borrowing which should help growth doesn’t seem to me to be a good policy at the present time. I continue to think that there should not be such a rate cut, as inflation is, to me, the more worrisome issue.
Just my $0.02.
Tax cuts are good and benefit an economy, if the tax cuts go to the people who actually buy things, causing more need of goods produced, therfore a growth in employment and an upward pressure on wages. When you give the cuts to the very, very rich, will they just invest it(overseas?) or tuck it away in an offshore bank where in both instances it does little good for the local economy? Taxation on consumption, rather than raising income taxes and not having any taxes on manufactured goods, called a VAT (Value Added Tax), has brought countries that were running deficits to running surpluses, but I don’t have enough smarts to explain why.
Ben Bernanke IS the reason we will soon see a recession. This man is insane talking about cutting interest rates and further stoking inflation and driving the value of the US dollar to even lower lows than it is already at! Recessions are not always “bad”. They are needed to correct excesses in the economy that build up over time. If we have the recession this year, it will be a mild and short recession and we will emerge better off. If Benanke keeps printing dollars and devaluing the currency, we will still have a recession. He might put it off for a year or so but then the recession will be long and nasty like we had in the early 1980s to correct rampant inflation in the economy. That recession lasted over a year and drove interest rates to 22% and unemployment to double digits for almost a year! Since then recessions have been short and mild and inflation has been absent from our economy for almost 25 years! But now, while the government might say “there is no inflation” but anybody here that has been in a grocery store or at a gas pump in the past few months knows better. The government can say that because they do not count food and fuel prices in the inflation index but we sure count it in our wallets. Inflation is coming back big time because the government (Ben Bernanke especially) would rather please Wall Street than to control inflation which has been- and should be the Feds number 1 priority.
Bernanke isn’t to blame for the economic problems because our economy started the downward trend thanks to Greenspan’s poor economic advice. Greenspan (who lauded Bush’s tax cuts for the rich) said budget surpluses are bad because the extra money would be used to invest in the country which would have caused a labor shortage and when people feel economically secure they make more demands on their government. He actually wanted higher unemployment, lower wages, budget deficits and a crushing national debt.
He also said about the mortgage problem he didn’t see a national threat because “all real estate is local”.
Doug–
Another insightful post.
Greenspan’s number one priority was keeping labor costs low.
That means our wages, wages for the middle class.
Whenever he talked about the threat of inflation, which he did often, he meant “rising wages.”
You were entirely correct to point out that he served the corporate masters by keeping labor weak and economically insecure.
Greenspan was the guy, never forget, who just as the sub-prime loan scandal was emerging urged homeowners to get Adjustable Rate Mortgages.
There’s no conceivable reason for that advice other than to help make wealthy bankers wealthier.
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