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It is a time of freedom and fear, of Gaia and of borders, of many paths and the widening of
a universal toll road, emptying country and swelling cities, of the public bought into
privacy and the privacy of the public sold into invisible data banks and knowing
algorithms. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the
planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.
These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread.
Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.
This morning, I got an e-mail from a very thoughtful person by the name of Jamel. He asks:
That's a good question, and it led me to a gut-check: what would I say if a Democrat were in office? Trying not to be partisan, my own take on Bush's responsibility can be expressed in three parts.
What do you think?
Posted by James Cook at 9:57 AM.
# (permalink) 
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These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread.
Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.
This morning, I got an e-mail from a very thoughtful person by the name of Jamel. He asks:
"Is the President of the U.S. soley responsible for the economic situtation of this country? I mean doesn't the economy go in cyclical cycles which makes periods of depression inevitable at one time or the other?"
That's a good question, and it led me to a gut-check: what would I say if a Democrat were in office? Trying not to be partisan, my own take on Bush's responsibility can be expressed in three parts.
- It seems to me there are a number of macroeconomic factors over which a President has little control in normal times. These include technological innovation and patterns in global trade.
- However, Mr. Bush made a strong claim that his tax cuts would lead to job creation. That makes the question of whether jobs have been created in his presidency a legitimate one, and millions of jobs have been lost, not gained. Bush stands to be the first President since Herbert Hoover on whose watch there was a net loss of jobs. Bush is accountable for his claims and those claims' lack of consonance with reality.
- In the long run dealing with the national debt is something that a President can do (or not do) to impact an economy. When the national debt grows, interest payments as a portion of government spending grows, necessitating either the raising of more taxes or the cutting of productive government programs. The record deficits under George W. Bush, with huge growth in spending not even counting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with no plan to cover the gap with taxes, together make for a serious problem that is of the President’s doing. Bush can’t say the deficits are the fault of Congress, because the spending boom and tax cuts were his ideas, and because both houses of Congress are controlled by Mr. Bush’s own party.
What do you think?
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