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What is it about liberals that piss me off? Mainly its their inability to be pleased. Case 1- The current economy. Any liberal will say "our economy is horrible and it is G.W. Bush's fault." At the moment I will agree we do not have a great economy, however, it is not horrible. Beyond that, it is hardly Bush's fault (I mean, take macroeconomics, you'll learn something). Here is why: a) this "horrible" economy was actually begun by none other than Bill Clinton, one of the most scandal ridden presidents of our century. You see, his "spectacular economy" can hardly be attributed to him, the only thing that can be attributed to him is the high inflation rate, and the onset of the 2001 recession. But I will get to that. First let me explain that Clinton's spectacular economy can be attributed mainly to the Reagan era, (who actually had a more expansionary economy than Clinton if you look at the facts). G. Bush can be considered part of this because he continued Reagan's economic policies. There is this thing called a business cycle, with its recession declines, troughs (lowest point), expansionary rises and its peak (high point).By the time Clinton took over, those two presidents had set the economy into a strong expansionary stage. Basically, he had no option other than have a good economy, he could not help it. It was one of our longest periods of economic expansion true, and that may be attributed to the technology boom brought forth by the internet (it was during his presidency that the internet became a widely used commercial product). Look to history to see how technology booms affect the economy, the Industrial Revolution would be a good reference. However, the fact is that through Clinton's initiatives (which were often quite the opposite of Reagan's), Clinton managed to hinder job growth and Gross Domestic Product (hereafter known as GDP) growth, as compared to what could have been expected from Reagan's policies. Another moot point of Clinton's economy was his supposed surplus. In all actualities, he did not have one. Many may have heard by now the problems facing the Social Security system. Well that may be attributed to him. To retain a surplus, Clinton dipped into Social Security funds to fund things that had nothing to do with the system's original intent. By his later years, Clinton's grotesque failure to control the rising GDP led to a quickly rising inflation rate. In turn, this put the economy into the recessionary trend. This trend started in his early last year, but was negligable to American's because it was nearly unnoticeable (as was the economic upturn caused by Reagan and G. Bush before Clinton). Therefore, when G.W. Bush took office, and the recession decline continued, he had to take the credit for something that the president before him created (much like Clinton did). If Clinton had been in just one more term, you can bet your bottom dollar (because that is what you would lose) that our country would have faced a much more severe recession. G.W. Bush saw this recession that his predecessor had left him with, and indeed even ran his campaign based upon what he would do. His main policy, tax breaks. Now yes many may complain that the rich got more of a break than the average Joe. However, who paid the most into the country in the first place, and also, comparitively speaking to who put the most in compared to how much they got out, lower income and middle income families actually recieved larger tax breaks than the rich. For those who believe tax breaks were a bad idea because we are already in a deficit, well let me explain something. Believe it or not, surpluses are only good when their is a quickly growing economy and inflation growth. On the other end of the spectrum, defecits are only good in recessions. Um, we were (note were) in a recession. At the point our defecit is now, it is nothing to worry bout. It is easily made up once the economy starts strong again. Were it to get much larger then it could be a little more troublesome. But anyhow, back to the tax breaks. The idea behind this is, "if I give you 100 dollars, you will go out and spend that money." If you go buy 100 dollars worth of products at Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart will need to go out and make sure they give hours (i.e. pay someone) to run the register, as well as restock the items you bought. Not to mention the people who make those products will need to put in hours to make more, etc... Now all those people that had to work hours to furnish your 100 dollars worth of goods, now have earned money from working, and will go out and spend it, hence the cycle will continue. This is Trickle-Down Economics. It makes sense. And by the way, 3rd quarter of 2003 (President: G.W. Buss) saw the fastest economic growth since the 1980's (which were by the way, the Reagan years). Of course a liberal will only attribute a good economy to a liberal president, and find something else to attribute it to during a Conservative president. More to come... just not yet, I got busy.