Wait, Remember Him? He's Still the President

Not to bring down the party atmosphere like a lead balloon, but the elections are still 10 months off and the inauguration's more than a year, so GWB is still the President and, um, well, you mighta noticed that maybe things aren't going so well with the economy? I mean, what with oil being $100/barrel and rampant foreclosures and declining economic indicators? Does he have a plan? LOLZ, no, but he's thinking about eventually having a plan in time for the big speech-y thing he makes the teevees broadcast every year.

Bush is thinking that maybe, just maybe, he'll use the State of the Union to unveil an economic stimulus plan that will hopefully make people believe that he's interested in making the economy not suck so hard. But, despite being The Decider, he's having a difficult time corralling his advisers around any kind of specific plan because he doesn't have any actual ideas of his own other than tax cuts.

Sigh. See, Georgie, a little bit of edumacation for you. Tax cuts aren't a short-term economic stimulus plan because most Americans pay their taxes once a year. So, if you give everyone some sort of tax break for 2008, it'll kick in in 2009 (let alone, good luck getting that through Congress). While businesses pay taxes quarterly, the trickle down effects of further business tax cuts (which you would definitely never get through Congress) would take a good long while, too, so it's not exactly a way to fix the current slow down in a relatively short time frame so that as few Americans as possible are economically harmed.

Now, the problems with the economy right now sorta kinda also don't stem from too-high taxes: the fucked-up housing market, the expensive oil and the slowdown in consumer spending because of the credit crunch triggered by the fucked-up housing market and expensive gas aren't around because people are paying too much in taxes. It's because the government sort of looked aside while lenders and brokers did shady things and we keep fighting this war thingie in the Middle East and threatening other oil-producing nations and the tax cuts you gave to the oil companies didn't trickle down in terms of lower gas prices, they trickled down in terms of return to capital (i.e., dividends to stock holders) which didn't really help. And those are sort of longer-term issues, too, but you do have a year, George. Maybe you could try and do something about those things that sorta all happened on your watch before leaving office rather than just waving the worn-out tax cut flag? It would be an interesting change, at least.

 President Considers A Boost to Economy [Washington Post]