I had to ask...

Given the recent good news on the job front and the record increase in GDP did all those tax cuts Bush was bragging about work?

How valid is the (often raised) position that his economic policies are "disastrous"?

I admit it looks good on the surface, but there are a few things to remember and consider:

1. The GDP growth came during a quarter where the folks were getting their rebate checks, and where travel (vacations), and school supply purchases such as computers, clothing, etc. are big. Add that to the fact that mortgage re-finance rates were at their lowest in July and August, and that's most of the ball of wax for Q3. Is any of that going to be sustainable? I don't think so. After all, how many times can you re-fi your house in a year?

2. We are going into the Christmas buying season in about another week or so, and I would expect retail to have added more employees, whether part time or full time, to beef up their service. But how long will these positions last after, say, January 1st? How many of the jobs added were in manufacturing or tech, for instance?

I hope I'm wrong, it would be great to start adding real jobs to the economy again, but I just don't have enough information yet. I want to see what happens in the Christmas season, and how the jobs hold up in January and February.

No matter what the future holds, I think the best an upturn argues for is that a President's policies are far from the whole ball game as far as the economy is concerned. Pres. Clinton did much the opposite from Bush, had similar doom-sayers, and prolonged growth. If you thought it was mostly external factors and the economic cycle then (as I did), then an upturn now doesn't really say much. Note that the President's economists have been predicting a turn for years now, on the theory they could claim this was exactly as they foresaw when it happened. I do think the President has some effect on the economy, just a minimal one, and a much more direct impact on the country's fiscal health.

How come parties can claim to have economic packages destined to work when economists can't agree on practically anything?

Unfortunately, since the economy is a great motivator, Presidents will continue to try to take credit for the economy in good times and be attacked on it in the bad times, instead of people focusing on details the president has greater control over.

I think they definitely helped. One could attempt to argue that more spending instead of tax cuts would have helped more, but there is no doubt that putting money in people's hands helps the economy.

However, this has been a business led recession in that consumers have mostly continued to spend money but business has dramatically cut investment, both in inventories and capital items. This has been necessary as the late 90's were clearly in hindsight a major bubble whose after effects will take several years to work out. So in the long term, business needs to get hiring and investing if the economy is to continue to improve.

As far as Bush's economic policies being "disasterous", I would like someone to better explain why they think that is the case. I have criticized his spending and his lack of committment to free trade, but I would hardly call those policies disasterous.

Jeff