The Rantings of Legislative Terrorists

by: David Sirota

Thu Jan 29, 2009 at 13:16

Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, said that former President George Bush's signature tax cuts in 2001 had created years of growth but that the nation's problems started when Democrats regained majorities in Congress in the 2006 elections.

Again, only legislative terrorists desperate to sabotage the economy would make such deliberately insane statements. Only legislative terrorists would insist that the economy was Teh Awesome under George W. Bush. Only legislative terrorists would ignore the basic facts that most Americans innately know, and that were perfectly summarized by Washington Post:

President Bush has presided over the weakest eight-year span for the U.S. economy in decades, according to an analysis of key data, and economists across the ideological spectrum increasingly view his two terms as a time of little progress on the nation's thorniest fiscal challenges.

The number of jobs in the nation increased by about 2 percent during Bush's tenure, the most tepid growth over any eight-year span since data collection began seven decades ago. Gross domestic product, a broad measure of economic output, grew at the slowest pace for a period of that length since the Truman administration. And Americans' incomes grew more slowly than in any presidency since the 1960s, other than that of Bush's father.

And only legislative terrorists would keep repeating lies that claim - despite overwhelming data to the contrary - that Bush-style tax cuts are a better way to create jobs and boost GDP than infrastructure spending.

As I said before, America doesn't negotiate with international terrorists because if we did, we would validate and empower the most destructive people and ideologies. Likewise, Democrats shouldn't negotiate with legislative terrorists in the Republican Party, not only because Republicans have almost no legislative power, but because negotiating with legislative terrorists validates and empowers them to sabotage the economy.