Bush took office after a period of sustained growth that was longer than most cyclical economic periods, it was bound to drop and it did.  Combine that with the 9/11 attack and you have a recipe for an economic regression or worse. Enter Bush’s economic plans.  The economy rebounded much quicker than was anticipated, unemployment levels remained consistently lower than average, in short things were looking pretty good economically… at least for the first five years. 

The problem with the economy today is not Bush’s policies failing America; it is Bush failing his policies.  The basic ideas of these policies are sound.  Keep taxes low for American families, put capital in the hands of those who know how to efficiently (a word never used to describe the federal government) invest it while providing incentives used to help direct the flow of that investment, and keep government spending low.  President Bush started strong but failed to follow through.  He didn’t fight the open checkbook attitude of congress, yes both parties, and he didn’t pay attention to underlying currents in the economy that if detected soon enough could have been prevented, such as the mortgage crisis. 

Now to be perfectly fair, the failure of the mortgage industry can not be laid at the feet of Bush alone.  For decades now the government has failed the American people on this issue.  Now I’m not one for heavy government regulations but some issues require, if not regulation, at least solid, diligent, and consistent monitoring.  Real Estate, being the base of wealth for the vast majority of Americans, definitely qualifies as one of these issues.  Also, allowing the government sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both of which have the ability to borrow directly from the government treasury, to become more beholden to their share holders than to the people that they were created to help was another failure of our government.

When you take unchecked government spending add it to the failing real estate market and the total mismanagement of the war then policy, no matter how good, is bound to fail.  So do you take good policies and implement them properly or do you discard them completely?  According to Obama you discard them completely.

Obama is calling for increased government spending and, by his own words, will do nothing to reduce the deficit for at least the next four years.  The revenues to be received from his increased tax on those making greater that $250,000 a year will pay for only a fraction of his proposed spending.  There are only two possible outcomes of this scenario. The first would be an expanded deficit and the second would be raising the taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year.

Obama’s tax program has its own inherit dangers.  I say program and not cuts because, in many cases, he isn’t proposing cuts.  After all, how can you cut taxes on the bottom 40% of the income level when this income level already pay no taxes?  The answer, of course, is tax credits.  Credits allow people to actually get more money out of the system than they put into it.  This is not a tax program, it is a welfare program.

CBS did an article on three families in Ohio.  Under Obama’s plan family three, the wealthiest of the three, would have a tax bill that would increase by $5,000 a year. Family one, with the lowest income of the three, while already paying no taxes, would get a check for $2,200.  In essence, this means that family three would be giving $2,200 of their money directly to family one.  This is blatant wealth distribution.  This isn’t a Robin Hood attempt to take from the corrupt rich government and give to the poor; it is stealing from people that have worked hard to become successful.  It is socialistic in nature, creates dependency on the government, provides a disincentive to succeed, and is just plain wrong.