He didn’t call for giving people free money but, admit it, the former president sounds a bit like Duncan:
Bush said that the tax cuts would have a better chance of surviving if his name hadn’t been attached to them. In recent years, Democrats have resisted renewing the cuts, which they say favor the wealthy too much.
“I wish they weren’t called the ‘Bush tax cuts,’” he said.
Bush also seemed to suggest that, as the country climbs out of a recession, the focus on the budget deficit should take a back seat to the focus on growing the economy.
“Most of the political debate — and I guess rightly so — is about our balance sheet,” Bush said. “But we believe that, in order to solve the balance sheet, first and foremost, you’ve got to grow the private sector. And therefore, the focus ought to be on private-sector growth.”
Those comments seem to fly in the face of the new tea party-influenced Republican Party, which has been pushing the debate more towards spending cuts.
But Bush said a bigger economy would eventually eclipse the exploding national debt.
“The pie grows, the debt relative to the pie shrinks, and with fiscal discipline, you can better solve your current account deficits and your entitlements,” Bush said.
Bush’s whole economic theory was a complete failure, but he understood one thing correctly. Once the economy cratered and there was no money to borrow, the government had to fill the hole because no one else could. Even before the financial sector collapse, Bush was exploding the budget deficit, but the only way to fix the economy was to make the budget deficit even bigger.
What he said today was about a third right. He’s a moron for clinging to his ruinous tax cuts. He’s a fool if he thinks they’ll create enough economic growth to pay for themselves, let alone help us to start paying down the debt. But he’s right that austerity is for losers and won’t work.
As for Duncan, I don’t know how he envisions his “hand out free money plan” actually working in real life, but I recall him complaining about the fact that a huge portion of the stimulus was in the form of tax cuts. That’s a form of giving people free money. I’m aware that giving money to taxpayers for doing nothing only puts money in the hands of people who already have some, but we also have programs like food stamps and TANF that give money to people who have none.
Given the fact that the simple idea of doing some mortgage loan forgiveness spawned the Tea Party rage, I don’t think it’s politically viable to just start handing out checks to poor people. I see Duncan’s point about fixing the lack of demand in the economy and rich bankers getting interest-free loans which are basically free money. Fair is fair, and all that.
I don’t know. I look at this Congress and any idea I might have to help people just withers and dies. I mean, when George W. Bush seems like he’s making sense, hope has left the building.
