Carpe Datum

Mr. Tool

This guy is a fucking tool. Here's why:

The truth is that average Americans are enjoying wonderful prosperity. But that truth should not cloak the obvious reality of economic distress for many airline employees, thousands of automobile assembly workers or those whose jobs have been sent offshore. "Average" does not mean "all."

Did you notice the report that the Consumer Price Index fell in November by the largest percentage in 56 years, mostly because energy prices have declined precipitously since their post-Katrina spike? Everyone's dollars buy more.

Here are the changes in the Consumer Price Index since May 2005 (positive numbers mean prices have gone up): -0.1, 0, +0.5, +0.5, +1.2, +0.2, -0.6. So what does the tool point out? That last little number of -0.6 is indeed the largest drop in the CPI in 56 years (July 1949, to be exact). During the previous four months, however, the CPI rose by +2.4, so that's an average of +0.6 for EACH of the preceding four months! I wonder why Mr. Tool leaves out that little factoid?

By the same token, if we begin measuring from 12:55 remaining in the fourth quarter of this past Sunday's game, the Cowboys defeated the Redskins, 7-0! So what are all the Cowboys fans complaining about? What a bunch of whiners!

Consumer confidence jumped 13 points in November. And why not? As David Winston reported Dec. 13 in Roll Call , 30 "straight months of job growth created 4.5 million new jobs since May 2003, with 215,000 in November alone. Orders for durable goods are up sharply, and October saw the biggest one-month increase in average earnings on record."

Want to guess if that last statement about October seeing the biggest one-month increase in average earnings on record is cherry-picked? Go ahead, guess, then go see for yourself by comparing, say, the year 2005 to any year under Clinton in this category.

If we're going to talk about job creation under President Bush, why do you suppose Mr. Tool stars in May 2003? Could it be, just maybe, that May 2003 represents that statistical low point for this administration? Starting from January 2001, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that we've had a net gain of 4.8 million jobs. That's 81,000 jobs per month, but the economy has to create 150,000 jobs per month just to deal with natural attrition (businesses closing, new people entering the workforce, etc). Even with Mr. Tool's own cherry-picked numbers, Bush has only broken even in the past 2.5 years. In the long haul, we've lost ground.

Many readers will recall that both the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office predicted half-trillion dollar deficits for the fiscal year that ended in October. They were wildly off.

Actually, the projected deficit in January 2005 was $368 billion. Now it is $333 billion. So an error of 10% is "wildly off"? Either way, a deficit of $333 billion is long way from the $236 billion surplus we enjoyed in 2000 under President Clinton. And don't try to push the line that 9/11 caused the deficit. I already smashed that myth to pieces a year ago.

Projected "losses" of revenue from the Bush tax cuts have failed to materialize. U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Dallas, pointed out earlier this month that "tax revenues are up close to 15 percent, the highest level in U.S. history." Bush's tax cuts, like those of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, have worked as advertised.

I'm sure it is just a clerical error by Hensarling's staff, but the current projected revenue for 2005 compared to 2004 from the Congressional Budget Office shows an increase of 13.9% (from 1.88 trillion to 2.14 trillion). Measured as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, a standard and more sensible way to compare year-to-year historical data, that's an increase of 7.4% (from 16.3 to 17.5). That final number of 17.5 still leaves us 16.3% less revenue compared to the last year of Clinton's term. If you would rather compare averages, the average revenue taken in as a percentage of GDP under Clinton was 19.2, while under Bush it is 17.6 if you include the 2005 CBO projection, a decline of 8.3%.

So yeah, the Bush tax cuts are working pretty much as advertised. They're a budgetary disaster, you fucking tool.

Posted by Observer at December 20, 2005 09:17 AM