Give to the rich

June 1, 2004

Paul Krugman assesses the effects of a second-term Bush economic plan, which would drastically cut funding for popular government programs: Dooh Nibor Economics

That agenda is to impose Dooh Nibor economics — Robin Hood in reverse. The end result of current policies will be a large-scale transfer of income from the middle class to the very affluent, in which about 80 percent of the population will lose and the bulk of the gains will go to people with incomes of more than $200,000 per year.

On the other side of the Times Op-Ed page, David Brooks doesn't think the Bush fiscal policy is all that bad: Grading the President.

Josh Marshall points out that the Bush tax policy was not driven by a dragging economy, but rather, by ideology:

The White House wasn't forced into deep tax cuts with destructive long-term consequences because of an economic emergency they found when they came into office. They came up with the plan when the economy was roaring.

The true reason and impetus for the Bush tax cut was not economic -- in the sense of reactions to cyclical developments in the economy -- but ideological. For the authors of the plan, the tax cut was a justification in itself; the White House simply grasped on to whatever explanation made most sense at the given moment to advance it. That's why a plan devised at the height of a boom -- to cull an oversized surplus -- made equally great sense when the economy was in free-fall. The policy was driving the rationale, not the other way around.