Background:
The economic policies of the George W. Bush Jnr Administration are essentially those of the Neoconservative right as developed during the Reagan presidency.
Neoconservatives believe that the state cannot improve the lot of the disadvantaged poor by education and welfare programmes financed through taxation. The Neoconservative solution is massively to decrease the taxation and regulation of corporations and of the rich, replacing progressive taxation wherever possible with low flat rates. The role of the state in the provision of education and welfare is reduced and replaced as much as possible by private charity.
Unsurprisingly for a movement financed by corporate America, the George W Bush Neoconservatives start from the proposition that what is good for US business is good for America. In their view, environmental programmes increase business costs and therefore they should be abolished or rolled back. Hence the US stand on Kyoto. The US Steel industry needs help - hence it is subsidised in breach of WTO Rules. Agribusiness and US Farmers are an important constituency - hence the push on genetically modified foods and the farm subsidies legislation.
Above all, Neoconservatives believe in "supply side economics" - tax cuts for the very rich make for the mythical "trickle down" effect which stimulates the economy.
Bush's Mid-Term Economic Score Card
At the time of the mid-term elections in 2002, the AFL-CIO (the American Trade Union movement), published a report on the Bush Administration's economic performance. Among its highlights were these statements:-
a) The nation has lost 1.7 million jobs over the past two years after adding 5 million jobs in 1999 and 2000. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, there are 2.5 job seekers for every job opening.
b) Workers who still have health insurance are paying substantially more for it. Workers’ premium payments rose 27 percent for single coverage and 16 percent for family coverage in 2002. Most employers are passing along more costs to workers in 2003 and plan to do so next year.
c) More than 2 million unemployed workers have run out of their regular state-provided unemployment benefits and the emergency unemployment benefits they received under the temporary federal program. Many of these workers now have no jobs—and no means of support.
d) Bankruptcy filings continue at a recordsetting pace. Filings for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2002—more than 1.5 million cases—were almost 8 percent greater than the 2001 fiscal year. And the total number of cases filed in the three-month period ending last September set the national record for any three-month period in U.S. history.
e) Unemployment is at an eight-year high and expected to grow. Ten million unemployed workers want jobs but cannot find them. More than 4 million work only part time because they cannot get full-time positions.
f) Reversing real progress at the end of the 1990s, the ranks of the uninsured rose to more than 41 million in 2001. An estimated 300,000 individuals lost health coverage during the first six months of 2002. Most Americans without insurance—80 percent—are in working families.
g) For workers who have lost billions in retirement savings, the 2002 year-end investment reports brought more bad news: The stock market declined for the third consecutive year, marking the first three-year losing streak in 60 years. Losses in the major indices in 2002 were roughly double those of 2001, and the Dow’s losses almost tripled those of 2000.
h) States are experiencing their worst financial crisis since World War II, with cumulative three-year budget shortfalls that exceed $180 billion. States are laying off workers and making deep cuts in health care, education and public safety funding. For the first time in eight years, they are raising taxes—ironically, a step they are forced to take in part because of tax cuts and other cutbacks at the federal level.
Also, go through following link and make your own conclusion.
http://home.earthlink.net/~platter/bush-econ.html
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