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Bush expresses concern on US economy
Jan 4, 2008, 22:16 GMT
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Older Talkback
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In the final year of his Presidency, and with Congress tied up fixing the bill for war funds that he pocket-vetoed, Bush cannot contribute anything to the progress of the American economy. This is the usual 'response photo-op' to a problem with no solution from the White House.
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aqz8NTw6DVWo&refer=home
Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Hiring in the U.S. slowed more than forecast in December and unemployment jumped to a two-year high, raising the odds that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by half a point this month to ward off a recession.
Payrolls rose by 18,000, capping the worst year for job creation since 2003, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The jobless rate increased to 5 percent from 4.7 percent in November, while the Institute for Supply Management said growth in U.S. service industries cooled last month.
Excluding a gain in government jobs, payrolls fell last month for the first time since July 2003, hurt by losses in manufacturing, construction and the retail industry.
``This tells you that the strains from credit problems and so forth that have been developing the last six months are starting to bite and they're biting in a way that now finally draws consumption into question,'' said Neal Soss, chief economist at Credit Suisse Group Inc. in New York.
www.marketwatch.com/news/story/dollar-extends-losses-disappointing-ism/ story.aspx?guid=%7B2FDC8282-8283-4A71-B455-FA43D7F3B453%7D
The dollar extended losses against most major rivals Wednesday, plunging against the yen after the Institute of Supply Management said the U.S. factory sector contracted in December, crude-oil futures hit $100 a barrel for the first time and minutes from the Federal Reserve's last meeting showed little opposition to an interest rate cut. The minutes 'suggested that the Fed remains concerned about the economic outlook, with members agreeing that the housing correction could be deeper and more prolonged than originally anticipated,' said Matthew Strauss, senior currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets. 'The minutes leave the door wide open to further cuts, he said, adding that RBC expects the Fed funds rate to fall to 3.75% by the end of the first quarter.
Financial institutions realize that their mortgage holdings, plus the paper backed by mortgages, do not reflect current real estate values. There will be many interest rate hikes coming in 2008 on existing mortgages, and more defaults, and in many cases the banks sold the mortgages to others - so many people do not even know who holds their paper.
Based on many commonly accepted indicators, the nation is already sliding into recession - the last thing that GOP incumbents want to hear, facing funding for Iraq one more time.
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aROBkKxFM.RM&refer=home
Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy may be on the verge of -- or already in -- a recession, based on the increase in 2007's unemployment rate, economists said.
The jobless rate rose to 5 percent in December, the highest in two years. The figure was 0.6 percentage point higher than March's 4.4 percent, which was the lowest reading of the expansion that began at the end of 2001.
``Since 1949 the unemployment rate has never risen by this magnitude without the economy being in recession,'' John Ryding, chief U.S. economist at Bear Stearns Cos. in New York, said in a note to clients. ``We now put ourselves on recession watch.''
...knock yourself out!
Granted, you hit historic all-time lows in unemployment, record tax receipts, historic high houseold wealth and low inflation, but staggering commodity prices, outsourced everything and 30 years of industrial destruction from a series of foolish presidents and a blind Congress cannot sustain us forever!
We've done our part GW. Yu have lot's to be proud of but like your predecessors, you're leaving it for the next guy.
...knock yourself out!
Granted, you hit record low's in unemployment, record highs in tax receipts, record houseold wealth and job creation, and record lows in inflation
but
After 30 year of destruction to our industrial base, outsourced everything, and rampant anti-business climate, the party's coming to an end.
Try not to leave it for the next guy, I think they are New Dealers...maybe we can get Obama to pass another free trade pact!
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
(Now we know where Rush's drug stash ended up)
Thanks to GWB, the National Debt has expanded from 5.7 trillion to over 9 trillion, and we face a total final cost for the war in Iraq of over 1.3 trillion. Add to that lost earnings potential of those who were serving multiple tours, rather than working at home with their families and paying taxes. Add to that future costs of expanding the V.A. to care for the severely wounded.
Bush took credit for improvement via tax cuts, but the REAL boost came from Greenspan's rate cuts, leading to the ability of U.S. industry to borrow at low rates for expansion - ALSO, and importantly, the TRILLIONS of dollars from home mortgage refinancing, FAR MORE than the puny amounts of tax cuts that filtered down to the bottom 95 percent of earners.
The National Debt has continued to increase an average of
$1.49 billion per day since September 29, 2006!
China's economy is growing far more rapidly than ours, and that puts demand pressure on oil prices. Bush's trade policies have done more for other countries than for us. In the 6 years of GOP majority, Congressional spending ran far ahead of any earlier Administration, and he vetoed NOTHING. NOW, he complains about earmarks, because it's a Democratic majority.
americanresearchgroup.com/economy/
December 20, 2007
71% of Americans Disapprove of George W. Bush's Handling of the Economy
While 66% of Americans disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job overall, 71% of Americans say they disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy according to the latest survey from the American Research Group.
Among all Americans, 32% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 66% disapprove. When it comes to Bush's handling of the economy, 28% approve and 71% disapprove.
Among Americans registered to vote, 31% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 66% disapprove. When it comes to the way Bush is handling the economy, 27% of registered voters approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 72% disapprove.
While Bush's overall approval among Republicans is at 65% (67% in November), 51% of Republicans approve and 45% of Republicans disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy. In November, 70% of Republicans approved of the way Bush was handling the economy and 25% disapproved.
www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10431059
Mr Bush has little going for him in 2008. Only one in three Americans thinks that he is doing a good job. Almost all of his closest political advisers have decamped. Congress is determined to get its revenge and block anything that he sends it. And in reality he has much less than a year to play with. Congress leaves for its summer break in August (thereafter it will do little but pass appropriations bills). If the Republican Party chooses a champion in the next couple of months, he will to some extent cede the leadership of his party; if it fails to choose a champion, as many people are now speculating, the country will be agog at the prospect of a party convention at which the nomination is still up for grabs. Mr Bush's last chance to command the national spotlight may come as soon as the state-of-the-union address on January 28th.
And, with his power ebbing, he faces a mountain of problems at home and abroad. The economy is softening. A wave of foreclosures is damping consumer spending and spreading anger. The fires of populism are burning ever more brightly. There are widespread calls for a stimulus package to revive the economy.
More than most presidents, Mr Bush is also a hostage to foreign events over which he has little control. The current implosion in Pakistan is just one more reminder of the instability of the greater Middle East. If the surge continues to be successful, Mr Bush will have some reason for self-congratulation; if it falters and fails, he will leave office a broken man.
www.house.gov/budget_democrats/analyses/08The_Bush_Economy_FINAL.pdf
This economy has left many American workers and families behind. nder this Administration, unemployment has risen, job creation has been ow, the real income of a typical family has actually fallen, and national aving has declined. As energy and health-care costs rise, it is becoming arder for families to make ends meet.
Republican fiscal policies have made the problems worse, by financing tax uts for the most fortunate with an explosion of the debt–owed in large part to foreign investors–while chipping away at funding for education, healthcare, and other investments critical to the strength of the U.S. economy.
Jobs Have Become Harder To Find — The economy, which created more than 200,000 jobs er month between 1993 and 2000, has averaged only 72,000 new jobs a month since 2001 –only about half the pace needed to keep up with the growth of the working-age population. This weak job market has left over 900,000 more workers unemployed and increased long-term unemployment by 65 percent. The manufacturing sector has been particularly hard hit, with a loss of 3 million jobs.
American workers are more productive than ever, but they are not benefitting much from their increased output. Productivity has grown robustly since 2001, yet the real income of a typical family has fallen by almost $1,300.
Was anybody ever been able to explain to George, in simple words, what an economy is?
www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt.htm
Under President Clinton the growth in debt ceased, but note the radical change in direction since George W. Bush entered office. There is no question and a lot of mathematical proof that the steepest upward rises in debt since the end of World War II, started with President Reagan and continued with other so called Neo-Conservatives.
Unbiased mathematical proof exists to support the claim that since 1945, Republican presidents have borrowed more than Democratic presidents regardless of the inflation rate.
Since 1938 the Democrats have held the White house for 35 years, the Republicans for 34. Over that time the national debt has increased at an average annual rate of 8.7%. In years Democrats were in the White House there was an average increase of 8.3%. In years the Republicans ran the White House the debt increased an average 9.7% per year. Those averages aren’t that far apart, but they do show a bias toward more borrowing by Republicans than Democrats even including World War II.
If you look at the 59-year record of debt since the end of WWII, starting with Truman’s term, the difference between the two parties’ contributions to our national debt level change considerably. Since 1946, Democratic presidents increased the national debt an average of only 3.2% per year. The Republican presidents stay at an average increase of 9.7% per year. Republican Presidents out borrowed and spent Democratic presidents by a three to one ratio. Putting that in very real terms; for every dollar a Democratic president has raised the national debt in the past 59 years Republican presidents have raised the debt by $2.99.
At no time since 1945 when Republicans have been in total charge of both elected branches of government have they reduced spending. They talk about it a lot, but they never deliver.
It does not matter if you call it a war or an occupation, supporting Iraq is expensive. It just boggles the imagination of any fiscally responsible person that the Republican Congress and President have repeatedly cut taxes during this overly aggressive and very expensive era for our military. The nation is borrowing money so that the we can spend more on our military than all the other nations on Earth combined, and still the Neo-Cons are calling for even more tax cuts and even more military spending.
Mr. Bush is constantly claiming that the economy is great! What he leaves out is that he is buying that simulated good economy with his borrowed dollars; it is a false economy that could very well crash the minute the borrowing stops, yet for the sake of our future it must stop.
When President Bush II came into office in 2001 he quickly turned all that progress around. With the help of a Republican controlled Congress he immediately gave a massive tax cut based on a failed economic policy; perhaps an economic fantasy describes it better. The last year Mr. Clinton was in office the nation borrowed 18 billion dollars. The first year Mr. Bush II was in office he had to borrow 133 billion[8]. The first tax cut Bush pushed through a willing Republican Congress caused an upswing in government borrowing that was supposed to stimulate the economy, but two years later Bush had to push through yet another tax cut. The second tax cut was needed because it was clear that the first one did not work. Economic history tells us the second did not work either.
As a result of all his tax cutting with no cutting in spending, in 2003 President Bush set a record for the biggest single yearly dollar increase in debt in the nation’s history. He did it again in 2004, increasing the debt more than half a trillion dollars. Since 2003 total borrowing has exceeded $500,000,000,000 per year. Even Mr. Reagan never increased the debt that much in a single year; Mr. Reagan’s biggest increase was only 282 billion, half of GWB’s outrageous spending. As a result of the fact that the debt was already pretty high when Bush II entered office, his annual rate of increase is only averaging 7% per year so far. In 2006 he was holding press conferences bragging that the debt was increasing at the rate of only 300 billion dollars a year, yet in reality it was twice that. Again the facts do not match Neo-Con rhetoric.
Of course 7% growth is a misleading figure as it does not make clear that by so drastically increasing the total debt, the amount of the annual US budget dedicated to service the debt has grown to over 20%.
What a shame, a man that probably cannot even balance his own check book is in charge of trying to clean up in less than 1 year what took him 7 years to create. Good luck!
Aaaah yes, the Democrats lost on Afghanistan and Iraq and now are going to try and turn it into a referendum on the economy.
LOL!
If you are not getting rich there is something seriously wrong with you, perhaps you are spending too much time on the internet whining about Bush.
But hey, the Democrat congress has done something to 'boost' the economy... Oh wait, they haven't. As a matter of fact their ONLY accomplishment has been to increase minimum wage. Laudable perhaps, but it comes at the price of a small percentage increase in the unemployment figures.
Unemployment is STILL not what it was at the end of the Clinton administration BTW, and that is when we had $11 a barrel oil as a result of Bush Sr.s first gulf war.
You can blame the legislative logjam on the GOP, which threatens a filibuster every time legislation is put forward. The topper was Bush pocket-vetoing the very bill that he asked for.
The nation will only move forward out of this mess by electing a Democratic President, and along with him/her, a blowout of the fossils in Congress who have supported the mess of the past 7 years along party lines.
LOL = Loser On the Loose
www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt.htm
Since 1938 the Democrats have held the White house for 35 years, the Republicans for 34. Over that time the national debt has increased at an average annual rate of 8.7%. In years Democrats were in the White House there was an average increase of 8.3%. In years the Republicans ran the White House the debt increased an average 9.7% per year. Those averages aren’t that far apart, but they do show a bias toward more borrowing by Republicans than Democrats even including World War II.
If you look at the 59-year record of debt since the end of WWII, starting with Truman’s term, the difference between the two parties’ contributions to our national debt level change considerably. Since 1946, Democratic presidents increased the national debt an average of only 3.2% per year. The Republican presidents stay at an average increase of 9.7% per year. Republican Presidents out borrowed and spent Democratic presidents by a three to one ratio. Putting that in very real terms; for every dollar a Democratic president has raised the national debt in the past 59 years Republican presidents have raised the debt by $2.99.
At no time since 1945 when Republicans have been in total charge of both elected branches of government have they reduced spending. They talk about it a lot, but they never deliver.
Seeing our jobs move overseas was not a factor in 2001, and the manufacturing sector was still alive and kicking. Bush's job numbers have come basically from service jobs, which pay considerably less - as well as Government's own hiring. Now we import goods from overseas, send dollars overseas in return, and then Bush finances the war with the very same dollars. I'd suggest, assuming you're even capable of reading something other than Newsmax, looking into the rise of sovereign funds. The hike in oil prices, and China in competition for oil supplies, only raises the stakes.
news.monstersandcritics.com/asiapacific/news/article_1384762.php/China_ says_its_advance_on_Central_America_is_"irreversible'
'The Republic of China is increasing its ties with Central America with a view to establishing diplomatic relations with all countries in the region, Chinese ambassador to Costa Rica Wang Xiaoyuan said Friday.'
www.reuters.com/article/managerViews/idUSORM63499820071206
'SEC's Cox sounds warning bells on sovereign funds'
Now China and other countries can produce and engineer goods, and Ford just lost second place to Toyota.
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aAyvk4noY1b0&refer=home
Year-end sales reports yesterday showed Toyota taking the No. 2 U.S. spot held by Ford since 1931. Ford, which hasn't finished third or lower since 1905, also said it expects lower industrywide sales in the first half.
The economy, which created more than 200,000 jobs per month between 1993 and 2000, has averaged only 72,000 new jobs a month since 2001 – only about half the pace needed to keep up with the growth of the working-age population.
www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/business/05econ.html
The unemployment rate surged to 5 percent in December as the economy added a meager 18,000 jobs, the smallest monthly increase in four years, the Labor Department reported on Friday.
Economists viewed the report as the most powerful indication to date that the United States could well be falling into a recessionary downturn. Evidence of widening unemployment heightened anticipation that the Federal Reserve would further cut interest rates this month, perhaps by an unusually large half a percentage point, in a bid to prevent the economy from sliding into the muck.
“This is unambiguously negative,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “The economy is on the edge of recession, if we’re not already engulfed in one.”
Everyone has this figured out by now - Bush screws up, so it's everyone else's fault. This is the tired litany of the LOLosers.
Try making a direct case for what Bush is (not) getting done, for a change. You have a choice of upcoming useless photo-ops - the State of the Union where he'll suggest another tax cut in the face of a recession, or a visit to the Mideast where nothing will be accomplished.
No one listens to Bush anymore, and no one listens to his acolytes, either. Al Qaeda has added Algeria to their to-do list, and is busy trying to knock off the Sunni in Iraq standing against them.
www.nytimes.com/2008/01/03/world/middleeast/03iraq.html?ref=middleeast< br />
Meanwhile, al-Maliki resents the attention being paid to the Sunni.
www.nytimes.com/2008/01/04/world/middleeast/04iraq.html?em&ex=119959560 0&en=4eee44cdf4c888cf&ei=5087%0A
'While the rise of these groups has been the most promising development for the American military, the partnership has drawn deep skepticism from the Shiite-dominated central government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The Shiites fear the Americans have created an armed parallel force that one day could turn against the official Iraqi security forces, which are dominated by Shiites and Kurds. Last month, the government declared that it would eventually disband the groups, though it has said it would integrate some members into the official security forces.'
Not good news for the GOP in an election year; but perhaps they can explain how the National Debt grew so significantly since 2001. Just go to Google news and enter Bush and recession, and stand back.
www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2008/01/04/afx4495952.html
The chances of a recession in the US economy are likely above 50 pct after this morning's employment report, said Harvard economics professor Martin Feldstein.
He was already predicting a 50/50 chance before today's report, but now 'I'm probably over, I'm probably over,' he told Thomson Financial News on the sidelines of the American Economics Association meeting here.
Feldstein said he was 'not expecting' a 5 pct reading on the unemployment rate. 'It says that consumer confidence will be weaker, that household income will be lower, it says that consumer spending won't grow as fast, so I think it increases the risk of very slow growth or an actual downturn in 2008,' he said.
(Leave it to Fox News to disinter this coffin)
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,319728,00.html
NORFOLK, Va. — Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson predicted Wednesday that 2008 will be a year of violence worldwide and a recession in the United States, followed by a major stock-market crash by 2010.
Sharing what he believes God has told him about the year ahead is an annual tradition for Robertson.
It's Bush's fault that you are a loser.
Riiiiight.
why would bush be concerned he's the one who wreck the economy.
remember when this ashole said there will be poor people in america?
well thats what is happening .only the rich will prevail like him.
Who are the very first ones being laid-off? Illegal aliens. Will they return to Mexico and points south? No. Why? Most of them will not be able to and there will be no source of income for them at home if they returned.
I'm glad that I am not standing around Anold's shoes right now. He just thinks he has a budget crisis. In a few weeks, he will be seeing the MOTHER of All Budge Busters.
I don't fully agree with that assessment.
A number of illegals are involved with housing construction, and as homebuilding slows, they'd be let off to cluster around Home Depot with the rest of the crowd.
Businesses with 'legal' employees have to pay benefits and FICA, and have other costs in complying with regulations. Hiring 'illegals', however, gets the employer around much of that. The risk is an INS raid and penalties, but that tends more to impact outfits that hire illegals in 'bunches'. It costs taxpayer dollars to raid a business.
As to Bush, he has two ways of dealing with these types of problems. One is the 'foreign photo-op', and it appears per news reports that a deal has already been cut with the Israeli government to announce backing off of building 'illegal' settlements, which of course Bush has already complained about, 7 years after the fact. That will get some coverage until mid-January, or perhaps a bit longer.
The other is the 'wait for it' - one example was his touting of the Iraq Study Group's 2006 work for months before the findings, only to pay no attention once the findings came out. He pulls this swindle all the time; and now we're supposed to wait for his 'cure' in the State of the Union speech, like waiting for the medicine wagon in the Old West, when the guy with the magic potions cured 'whetever ailed you'.
He has very few levers to press - a tax cut in the face of mounting expenses is insulting to anyone with a brain, but always plays well with the GOP-leaning rockheads. The Fed can cut rates (and should), but that's not Bush's decision.
Illegal immigration is a large problem with the GOP voters, who saw no real action in securing our borders over the past 7 years (Lou Dobbs got THIS one right). McCain will take some punishment for his views on this topic from those same voters, who really have no 'true Conservative' to vote for, now that Thompson has admitted he does not even care about the Presidency, but still got 13 percent in Iowa for some odd reason.
(Now that Iowa is over, there's room to scare everyone about the economy. The Sunday talk shows will chew on this once Iowa has been digested, and the White House would rather they'd be talking about Bush's trip to the Mideast. I think everyone is pretty bored with Iowa right now, so let's see what the Sunday topics are.)
www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-sat_econ_0105jan05,1,2012116.story? ctrack=1&cset=true
The nation's unemployment rate unexpectedly surged to 5 percent in December, making its steepest one-month increase since the economic tailspin of late 2001 and heightening concerns that the U.S. economy could be tottering toward outright recession.
While the government jobs report doesn't mean a recession is inevitable, it definitely represents 'a major warning shot that the economy is in trouble,' said Joel Naroff, head of Naroff Economic Advisers.
For Economic Outlook Group economist Bernard Baumohl, December's 'bleak' and 'awful' jobs report indicates that 'this business cycle is just about over,' and 'the only real question now is whether the economy will contract for one quarter or two.' Baumohl expects unemployment to peak at 5.7 percent during this summer.
A rising jobless rate can become a potent political issue, and with the nation entering a presidential election year, President Bush went out of his way Friday to say that 'this economy of ours is on a solid foundation.' He added that 'we can't take economic growth for granted,' however, and urged Congress not to raise taxes.
With higher energy costs creating inflation, since many goods are made of petroleum byproducts, in addition to direct costs tied to gasoline and heating oil, 'stagflation' is back in the news stories.
The Fed has to be careful, as too-deep rate cuts are inflationary. Americans are already paying more for imports because of the weak dollar, and increased exports are not enough to boost economic activity.
The GOP incumbents are properly nervous, because Bush is not running again (we FINALLY caught a break!), and keeping the GOP numbers up is not his problem. His mission seems to be his legacy, and now he has to also untangle the mini-mess created from the pocket veto of his own funding bill.
Enter 'stagflation' in the GOOGLE NEWS search box, and there are quite a few stories showing up, and discussion forums. Here's one:
www.smartmoney.com/decode/index.cfm?story=20080103
Coined in what was arguably the worst decade for the U.S. economy since the Great Depression, stagflation is a combination of declining economic growth (stagnation) and persistently rising prices (inflation). It's an especially pernicious enemy for monetary policymakers because their usual weapons for fighting economic threats — either raising or lowering interest rates — are somewhat neutralized. In general, cutting rates encourages economic growth by lowering borrowing costs, but it can also stoke inflation by giving consumers and businesses more money to spend. Raising interest rates tamps down inflation by discouraging borrowing and spending but can also slow economic production.
Today, prices are undoubtedly rising and the economy is slowing down after several years of expansion. On Wednesday, oil futures briefly touched $100 a barrel for the first time and closed at their highest level in nominal terms at $99.62. Consumer prices in November increased 0.8%, the largest monthly gain since September 2005, and were up 4.3% year-over-year, boosted by high food and energy costs. Meanwhile, in a sign that industrial production could be faltering, the Institute of Supply Management reported this week that its key index of manufacturing activity fell to its lowest level in nearly five years in December.
...we've spent 30 years destroying manufacturing of...well...everything in the USA. We've greenlighted free trade bills without restrictions, made permit processes and legal issues so hard to overcome our industrial base is decimated.
We no longer are players in Steel, lumber, chemical, paper, aluminum, tertiary metals, and just about everything else. Our auto business is just fine, if the home office is in Japan or Germany.
We outsource...everything. thrity years of liberals stifling growth in America, and we STILL kick ass! We compete with nations who have governments enable industry with tax breaks, trade sanctions, and every perk they can throw at them.
So, now, after Bush succeeds in record growth, record tax receipts, record employment, record low inflation, and record houseold wealth, the broken machine starts to go bad.
If I were Mr. Bush...I'd do nothing! I'd tell everyone what needs to be done and go back to my office and leave it for the next guy. Unfortunately for him, he's gracious to a fault.
(There's no turning off such asininity in a public forum, so it rests on the intelligence of the readership's 'schmuck detector' to follow your partisan nonsense. If you could get your head out of Bush's ass for 5 minutes and look around, the world might come as a shock).
This is no party's 'fault' - work moves to the lower-cost areas. First it was Mexico, and now it's China, and other nations in the Far East and even Eastern Europe. We could not reduce costs enough to compete with their advantages, and cost of living. They are graduating engineers in far higher numbers than U.S. colleges. To compound it, the top 10 Ivy League colleges are getting huge endowments from their graduates, and the rest of the U.S. college system gets meager pickings. The State universities, which graduate far more people, are bleeding.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22043995/
'While the Ivies, which account for less than 1% of the total, lift their spending into the stratosphere, many public colleges and universities are struggling to cope with rising enrollments in an era when most states are devoting a dwindling share of their budgets to higher ed. 'Policymakers seem to have concluded that flat funding is all that public higher education can expect from the state,' says Ronald G. Ehrenberg, an economist who directs Cornell University's Higher Education Research Institute.'
While Bush pushed 'no child left behind' (which seems somehow to have bypassed you), we should be looking for those hard-workers and geniuses with new ideas (again, you missed the boat) and making sure that they were able to get the education that creates business leaders, and thought leaders. Those are the people who HIRE those 'left behind'. Bush underfunded his own mandate, stealing class time away from original projects and towards rote learning. I hope they're learning to pronounce 'nuclear'.
Bush has decreased educational spending, and dumped the money in Iraq, where probably 25% of it goes into the back hole of fraud and corruption. Contractors overbill even for the basic services, and a few companies prosper, at the expense of everyone else. If those costs were added to the esimated $1.5 trillion cost, in terms of taxpayer dollars, you'd see that 20% of the National Debt went into the dumper.
(2006)
www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=86486
President Bush proposed shrinking federal spending on education by more $3 billion in his new budget proposal released Feb. 6, but he also wants to launch new initiatives to strengthen math and science achievement and reform America's high schools.
The largest source of federal education aid to states, the $12.7 billion Title I program for low-income students, would receive no new funding under the president's proposed budget for fiscal year 2007, which begins Oct. 1. Title I accounts for about half of federal spending to implement the 2002 federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, which aims to close achievement gaps and get all students to read and do math at grade level by 2014.
(Feb 2006)
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5192631
The president's 2007 budget calls for $3.5 billion in Department of Education cuts. That's nearly a 4 percent decrease in funding compared to last year. Forty-two education programs are targeted for elimination. The biggest include arts education, vocational education, parent resource centers, the drug-free schools program and education technology grants. (Discretionary spending on education would drop from $57.5 billion to $54.4 billion -- a drop of $3.1 billion, or 5.5 percent, from a year ago).
In a briefing with reporters Monday, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings began by saying that education has gotten the largest percentage increases of any domestic, non-security agency since 2001, when President Bush took office.
That's true. Federal funding for education has gone up about 40 percent since 2001. But in the last two budgets (including 2007), education funding has been flat or it has been reduced. This comes at a time when the No Child Left Behind Act is forcing states to spend a lot more money on testing, teacher training and school improvement to meet the law's mandates.
(Since the GOP has done nothing but spend for the past 7 years, and Iraq is costing us heavily, the budget requires that spending be offset by cuts elsewhere. The Democrats managed to get some education spending put in, but it's a zero-sum game, and Bush has not provided enough funding for the 'No Child Left Behind' added requirements. Bush has saddled himself with Iraq and other military costs, bleeding domestic spending.)
www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/news-by-subject/budget-news/?i=51244; _hbguid=3826ba61-b5b2-4552-9185-5061a8d8d6ab
The budget contains $59.4 billion in funding for the U.S. Department of Education (ED), though an across-the-board recision of 1.75 percent (applied equally to all domestic programs) will leave actual spending at $58.4 billion. That’s still $1 billion more than in 2007—and $2.2 billion more than Bush had requested.
Under the new budget deal, federal funding for educational technology remains the same, at $272 million—though the recision will bring actual spending levels down to $267 million, thus marking the fifth time in the last six years that federal ed-tech funding has been reduced.
(This reveals the partisan gamesmanship that Bush uses to keep the war funding going, at the expense of domestic programs, while massive GOP spending from 2001-2006 drove up the National Debt. Now that the Democrats have the majority, Bush has suddenly turned cheapskate. Whatever else Bush is, he's the biggest phony ever to occupy the Oval Office - during his tenure, the entire U.S. got screwed. This is one reason that Huckabee and Obama are popular - the voters see 'honesty' as 'change', and the GOP incumbents are in real trouble in 2008, especially if a recession is recognized officially.)
www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/related-top-news/?i=50375;_hbguid=43e 5fa8d-a8b5-4e0c-81e8-c961c00b699a
President rejects 5 percent increase in education funding, while approving 9 percent increase in defense spending
Escalating his budget battle with a Democratic Congress, President Bush on Nov. 13 vetoed a spending measure for labor, health, and education programs that would have provided $63.6 billion for the U.S. Department of Education, a 5 percent increase over 2007 spending and 8 percent more than Bush had sought.
Included in the budget bill was $271 million in funding for educational technology, as well as $1.2 billion for career and technical education. Bush had proposed $600 million for the latter program and sought to kill the former entirely.
The president’s veto sets up what could be a nasty showdown over 2008 education spending, with the 2008 fiscal year already two weeks old. In exercising just the sixth veto of his presidency—all have come since Democrats took control of Congress earlier this year—Bush chided the opposition party.
“The majority was elected on a pledge of fiscal responsibility, but so far it’s acting like a teenager with a new credit card,” he told an audience of business and community leaders. “This year alone, the leadership in Congress has proposed to spend $22 billion more than my budget provides. Now, some of them claim that’s not really much of a difference. The scary part is, they seem to mean it.”
Bush vetoed the $150.7 billion labor, health, and education spending measure on the same day he signed a 9 percent increase in the Pentagon’s non-war budget, to $471 billion—although the White House complained that the Pentagon budget, too, contained “some unnecessary spending.”
www.taxjustice-usa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=119
A final consideration is this-with the text of the Free Trade Agreement as it now stands, Panamanian investors would get new rights in the United States, with no new disclosure responsibilities at home. We have a situation where it is very, very easy to set up a business subsidiary in Panama. Panama's 'corporate' specialists advertise the country has having the most favorable and flexible incorporation laws in the world, in addition to some of the strictest banking secrecy laws available.
So the FTA will just encourage more U.S. businesses to pursue a strategy for tax purposes, designed solely to evade taxes in the United States.
But then the text of the Panama agreement allows corporations and investors with a 'substantial business presence' in Panama-that is, registered subsidiaries of multinational corporations-to use provisions found in Chapter 10 of the agreement to bring a claim against U.S. laws using an international investor tribunal. Panamanian-registered corporations would be able to bypass the U.S. courts system altogether in the case of an investment dispute involving the United States.
That's right, Panamanian corporations-as well as Panamanian subsidiaries of U.S. corporations-would be able to bypass the U.S. legal system, and take their claims to an international investor tribunal. Historically, these tribunals have proven much more sympathetic to corporate interests than they have to public-interest regulation.
Shame on the American people for putting up with these frauds in the White House. How many times do you have to be a sucker until you catch on? The support for Obama and Huckabee are an expression of 'buyer's remorse'; but with a compliant GOP in Congress, nothing ever changes.
Throw the bums out.
...why should I spend tax money to put kids through college? Waht a bullsh-t concept!
Fed Ed - what good has it done in America? 1962 was the highest learning achievement in American history. After 40 years of fed ed, what do we have to show for it? Nothing! Wasted! All of it! Has Bush spent less? You BET he has! He should get out a wooden stake and mallet then hammer it through the heart! Fed ed is dead!
Bush got us the No Child Left Behind act and the liberal establishment spent the next 6 years derailing it.
What does any of THAT have to do with a cooling economy? Absolutely nothing!
Stupid? Boy, I'll say!
The poster child for 'left behind' has spoken, and we can all see what happens when someone has been deprived.
This country needs originality and ideas, and those come from a relative few (you're excluded). Those people should not be deprived of educational opportunities, because the U.S. profits many times over from whatever investment is made in their education.
Adult education for job retraining, for those skilled workers who've paid taxes for years, and have seen their jobs vanish, is likewise worthwhile.
I'd give you some reference material, but it's like talking to a wall - so why bother?
RE: Bush got us the No Child Left Behind act and the liberal establishment spent the next 6 years derailing it.
==========================
What trash bin do you get your ideas from? Bush put a mandate on local school systems, and then did not fund it. It became yet another local tax, since schools had to follow through regardless.
It was dead from the start, because the premise of everyone achieving mediocrity gets you nowhere. REPUBLICANS are against it, because they're afraid the kids would turn out like SP4 brainwashed robots, instead of people with original ideas, encouraged to advance where their own skills take them.
The funniest part is listening to Bush mangle the language, college degrees and all.
www.blueoregon.com/2007/03/education_is_no.html
Efforts to reauthorize the Bush regime’s signature No Child Let Behind Act are facing a formidable backlash. At least 50 Republican members of Congress have signed onto a bill sponsored by Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Michigan, that allows states to opt out of the act’s testing mandates.
The backlash against the No Child Left Behind Act should surprise no one. Like so many policies of the Bush regime, it is based on a foundation of false assumptions. No Child Left Behind takes the worst of the industrial education model and imposes it on every school district in the country by congressional fiat.
No Child Left Behind treats students like interchangeable widgets sitting in their assembly line seats getting their daily dollop of knowledge from an authority figure who stands in front of the class -- the sage on the stage. Then tests are administered to insure the prescribed knowledge has been absorbed. In some cases the curriculum is provided by a private contractor, and the classroom teacher is not permitted to deviate from the “script” to assure uniformity of results.
No Child Left Behind assumes all children learn the same information at the same rate in the same way at the same time. It assumes the accumulation of this information can be measured by tests. Any student who cannot pass the test is labeled deficient. It’s the school’s fault. The law assumes equality of outcomes. Every student will “succeed.” And this rhetoric comes from self-proclaimed conservatives who usually criticize programs like affirmative action for demanding equal outcomes instead of equal opportunity.
Children are not widgets. They are individuals who learn with different styles and methods at different rates and they require individual attention at times.
(2004)
www.cod.edu/people/faculty/mcgrath/CHILD.HTM
This colossal mistake began as a campaign strategy for garnering votes, whereby George Bush imagined he could fulfill his pledge to be the 'education president' by embracing the education reform movement's latest mantra of testing, testing and more standardized testing. The result is that, sadly, the history of come-and-go fads like new math or forced busing is being repeated, insofar as the weight of federal law has been applied to yet another fanciful trend concocted by educational theorists who, like the education president, have likely never taught a single minute in an elementary or secondary classroom.
Long before the president's act took effect, and when the administrators at our own schools were infected with the Excessive Testing Virus, meetings and debates and reams of agenda were imposed on wary faculties, experienced enough to realize that objective tests administered after a quarter or a semester or even a year, have limited reliability. No teachers we know would even think of factoring a standardized test score into a pupil's report card. Such scores may be helpful in supplemental ways, but they can never reflect a student's performance and achievment for a given time period. For education occurs according to a complex integrated, and cumulative dynamic that does not allow for 16- or 40-week segments to be validly and separately measured by the Iowa Basic, the S.T.A.R., the I.S.A.T., or any of the other machine-scored products-for-profit proliferating throughout the country.
(No kidding)
In Google, enter SP4 BOARD POSTER IDIOT and read the results.
www.google.com/search?num=20&hl=en&safe=off&q=sp4+board+poster+idiot
...doesn't make me wrong though...
My advice: find something in print...yes...an actual book...and try reading those for a while....
The last book you read only had 10 pages and lots of pictures. Mickey and Minney are as much up to date with reality as you are!
Bush is waiting until the State of the Union to announce his 'stimulus', which is no doubt another tax cut for the wealthy; rather than for those who would spend it.
Meanwhile, the market rose today, NOT because of Bush, but because they expect a steep rate cut from the Fed at just about the same time as Bush's speech.
The economic improvements in Bush's miserable tenure came from Greenspan's sharp rate cuts, and the accompanying refinancing of mortgages, which put a couple of TRILLION into people's pockets. That's MANY TIMES the amount of 'tax cuts' that actually made their way to the lower 95 percent of wage earners.
The tax cuts accelerated the growth in the National Debt, since Bush was too dumb to realize the costs of the Iraq war. The Laffer Curve is called a 'curve' for a good reason - at the other end of the curve, tax reductions create DEFICITS, as once taxes are low enough, the economy does not grow quickly enough to make up the greater difference from lost revenues.
(Here's our resident nitwit)
'So, now, after Bush succeeds in record growth, record tax receipts, record employment, record low inflation, and record houseold wealth, the broken machine starts to go bad.'
(Now Bush, our national nitwit)
www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/business/07cnd-Bush.html?_r=1&ref=business&o ref=slogin
CHICAGO — Dampening the administration’s customary upbeat tone on the economy, President Bush acknowledged Monday that the economic signs were “increasingly mixed,” but he also suggested he would oppose Democratic initiatives to increase spending to head off a recession.
In New Hampshire and elsewhere, the Democratic presidential candidates have also increasingly begun warning of a possible economic downturn and the need for actions in Washington, though they too have not been specific.
Mr. Bush’s comments insured that the economy would become an even more central issue in the campaign and Washington as Democrats and Republicans scramble to figure out how to address rising oil prices, the home mortgage crisis, a weakening job market and recession fears.
Mr. Bush, in his speech, told business leaders that while the fundamentals of the economy remain strong, “recent economic indicators are increasingly mixed” and the nation faces economic uncertainty.
“We cannot take growth for granted,” he said. “We confront economic challenges from the downturn of the housing sector, the high energy prices to painful adjustment in some of the financial markets.”
Though Mr. Bush did not warn of a recession — as some economists have — his speech, coupled with a separate address in New York by the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., was a marked shift from their most recent optimistic assessments.
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