Belated Vituperation
Some recovery we're having.
The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.7 million last year, and the median household income declined by 1.1 percent, the Census Bureau reported today. The worsening economic conditions fell heaviest on Midwesterners and nonwhites.It was the second straight year of adverse changes in both poverty and income, the first two-year downturn since the early 1990's.
The data, results of the Census Bureau's annual Current Population Survey, the official barometer for measuring income and poverty rates, showed that lingering negative effects of the recent recession cut across a broad swath of the population.
The official poverty rate rose to 12.1 percent in 2002 from 11.7 percent the year before, bringing to total number of people living below the poverty line to 34.6 million.
The median household earned income fell $500 over the same period to $42,400. Per capita income declined by 1.8 in 2002 to $22,794, the first decline since 1991.
I understand that poverty figures lag behind economic cycles. But add to that the continued shrinkage of the job market, the smaller-than-normal recovery in temp jobs created, and the sullen, mulish instistence of the economy not to get out of first gear for the fictional "Average American," and I get the impression that we're in the doldrums for the long haul.
A slow recovery is much better than a collapse, that much is true. But what worries me is the President's continued insistence that tax cuts will raise revenues faster than the defecit can grow. So far, this economic recovery is substantially different than all others recent in that it's much more modest and compartmentalized. Unfortunately, those recent recoveries are the ones on which the President based his numbers, when he wasn't summoning them from fantasy-land.
This is all bad news for those of us who feel that the President's economic plan is playing Russian roulette with investment rates and eventual inflation. In my unconsidered and thoroughly unprofessional opinion, the spiralling deficit, combined with the flatass nonrecovery we're in, is a bad situation to be in what with the wars on and all. Could this be the Greek-Tragedy Wheel of Fate issue that sinks Bush Jr.?
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Conservatives insist that tax
Conservatives insist that tax cuts will raise revenues - they don't insist that they will raise them instantly. There are a lot of other positive signs for the economy - housing is way up, durable goods and so forth, stocks, etc.
And, just to be a dick, here's this article from Robert">http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/rector200310010857.asp]Robert Rector on the National Review.
Buckethead, you'd be a dick
Buckethead, you'd be a dick only if the linked article was something more than half-assed conservative handwaving about lazy poor people and the decline of marriage.
Seriously, that article is
Seriously, that article is trash. The NR is really playing to the cheap seats these days.
Tax cuts MIGHT raise revenue
Tax cuts MIGHT raise revenue in the long run, but nobody has ever been able to demonstrate that they do to some sort of collective satisfaction.
Tax increases, though, absolutely do raise revenue. Short term, too.
Since the Bush government is utterly lacking in any form of spending discipline, at all, they're torpedoing any possibility of their pet plan from ever working...the deficit expands so fast that it eats up whatever tiny growth you'd get in the economy from the additional tax cut. Plus, these rich people with their tax cuts are simply going to invest overseas anyway.
Right, and then rising
Right, and then rising interest rates eat up the rest of the growth, and as money gets more expensive the economy slows down.
Worst case.
But it would all be different if everyone would get married, be happy, and get a job at Chevrolet!