George W. Bush Finally Speaks, Begs For a Return to His Policies

Yesterday former President George W. Bush gave a speech.  The focus was tax policy and economic growth.  Bush's record in both areas is abysmal.

Bush reiterated his policies from his two-terms in office and suggested they be carried into the future all the while neglecting to mention that his policies left America in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.  A crisis, five years after it began, we are still reeling in.

He advocated for lower taxes on the wealthy and spoke out in favor of his signature 2001 and 2003 tax cuts saying, “If you raise taxes on the so-called rich, you’re really raising taxes on the job creators.”We believe that one of the clearest expressions of freedom is that the aggregate demand of the citizens determine that which is produced,” said Bush. “We trust people when it comes to spending their money, and so should our government.”

“If the goal was public sector growth, it’d be a short conference,” said Bush. “We believe that the best policy is that which creates a robust private sector.”

A robust private sector? Under his watch the private sector shed millions of jobs. He cut taxes in 2001 and 2003 to extremely low levels and by 2007 the economy was in the dump. No president since Herbert Hoover lost more private sector jobs than George W. Bush.

 

Bush's overall record on job growth is ZERO. He created not one single new job in 8 years. That means for every new job, one was lost.  It's the worst record since the Great Depression.

But then, as we all know, George Bush is a Very Serious fiscal conservative who believes in balanced budgets and disciplined spending so he couldn't give a speech without mentioning how to fix everything.

Bush said that the majority of the political debate today focuses on federal spending, and rightly so. “When you look at the debt to GDP it’s pretty high,” said Bush. “Or you think about entitlements – the overhang is daunting.” Bush said in order to reduce the debt, the focus of the federal government should be on increasing the private sector to broaden the taxpaying base.

Incredible.  Almost three-quarters of the federal debt we have today comes from Reagan and George W. Bush.  Nearly $7 trillion alone comes straight from George W. Bush.  He is the very reason why "debt to GDP" is high.  He did it.  His policies of huge spending increases, huge tax cuts, two endless wars and no job growth created the debt to GDP ratio we have today.  Take a look:

This is quite insane.  The debt ratio we have today is directly derived from Republican policies. There's no getting around it.

The very policies that tripled our federal debt (Reagan) and then more than doubled it again (Bush), that ultimately led to millions of job losses and doubling the unemployment rate, that created a $1.4 trillion budget deficit and sent us into an economic collapse not seen since the Great Depression, are the very same policies George Bush touted again yesterday as being the saving grace for our country.

It's absolutely absurd to think that George Bush has any credibility when talking about creating a robust private sector, or about solving debt ratios, or about how lower tax rates create a thriving economic engine for our future. Nothing in his 8 years of setting American policy demonstrates he knows anything about such stuff.