Portrait of the Bush economy

We knew it wasn't pretty; these are the gruesome details:

To view clip http://www.americablog.com/2010/10/p...h-economy.html



Notice Bush's list at about 1:05 of the clip — the cuts will help "businesses that create jobs," those at the "low end of the economic ladder," and "small businesses."

The first isn't true unless you replace jobs with profits. The second is just a lie. And the third isn't true unless you replace small businesses with billionaires. ("Replacement phrases" that make Movement Conservative nonsense make sense are discussed here.) The facts are these:

• Income for the average worker (adjusted for inflation):
  
  • 2000 average income — $61,500
    2008 average income — $58,000
  
  "Jobs":
  
  • Bush created 3.5 million jobs over 8 years. Recall that one of our magic numbers is 150,000 new jobs/month — that's what it takes to break even with population growth. 96 Bush months x 150,000 = 14.4 million jobs needed to break even. He missed by a factor of four.
    
    But true to form, profits were way up. The number of people making $200,000/year or more increased almost ten-fold.
  
  And finally "small businesses" (i.e. billionaires):
  
  • 30% or more of the tax savings in 2007 (the height of the "boom") went to those with incomes over $1 million/year.
    
    12.5% of the savings went to the top .1% — those with $2 million/year income or more. (Johnston misspoke; "one in a thousand" is the top .1%, not the top .01%, as Table 7 here shows.)

Johnston's summary: "Clearly this was focused on helping a narrow group of people at the very top." Note also Keith's implication that Bush was deliberately "starving the beast" — deliberately strangling government of revenue.

Here are some more magic numbers, by the way — easy-to-remember breakpoints for income distribution (not wealth distribution). Sources for this include the excellent Slate multi-part series, Emmanuel Saez's academic site, plus the google. There's a mix of years and methodologies here, so this isn't gospel; but it's good enough:

• Top 20%   = $100,000 per year
  Top 10%   = $150,000 per year
  Top  5% = $200,000 per year
  Top  2% = $250,000 per year (tax cut pt)
  Top  1% = $400,000 per year
  Top  .5% = $600,000 per year
  Top  .1% = $2 million per year
  Top  .01% = $10 million per year

Check the Slate article for changes in the ratios over time. The highest income I'm aware of is David Tepper, Appaloosa Management — $4 billion in 2009. I'm sure he's piker compared to some.

Welcome to Bush-world, the real one, and Blue Dog–world as well. There's a movement afoot in parts of our ever-helpful press to rehabilitate the ex. Resist, guys.