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The Bush administration is on an economic and social course described by intelligent economists as unsustainable. Paul krugman was writing in March 2001 "The only way to understand the structure of the Bush [tax] plan is to see it as the creation of someone who believes in the trickle-down theory: make the rich richer, and a rising tide will lift all boats."

We are talking about the Bush's tax cuts legislated in 2001. Today there are tax cuts for the rich as Bush has unveiled the elimination of taxes on stock dividends . What is being experienced with this Bush administration is a social nightmare, the culmination of the depraved economic dogma of privatization of the common good.

As the United States and other countries are furthering the privatization of the public good with the Free Market so the related economies are artificially propped up and they are now ready to collapse unless better social and economic directions are taken.

Think of what is happening with this Bush administration. Economists Neil Howe and Richard Jackson of the Concord Coalition write:

"Few things capture the feverish economic optimism of pre-911 America better than CBO's January and May 2001 budget forecasts. Bottom line: The ten-year budget balance was supposed to cumulate into a mountainous surplus of $5.6 trillion--enough to finance large benefit expansions and large tax cuts while painlessly paying off the national debt. Since then, the mountain has vanished and the forecast has entered a free fall. By August 2001, the ten-year surplus had shrunk to $3.4 trillion; by January 2002, to $2.3 trillion; and by August 2002, to $1.0 trillion. Now it turns out that even this is optimistic. According to new CBO projections prepared at the request of Senator Voinovich, the ten-year budget balance could turn out to be a deficit of $2.9 trillion."

Economic statistics indicate that the U.S. economy grew by about 2.8 percent last year, yet in this same year of 2002 the unemployment rate went from about 4% in January to 6% in December. Let us think critically, the economy grew by 2.8% in the year 2002, the rich benefitted from the legislated 2001 tax cuts and the unemployment rose to 6% at the end of 2002. It is clear that the rich got richer in 2002 at the expense of the poor and unemployed.

So the rich got richer in 2002 and we will have the same story for the year 2003 as Bush is eliminating the dividend tax and getting ready to boost the economy by waging war against Iraq. The economy will again grow in 2003 and the rich will get richer once again at the expense of the poor and at the expense of the young people in uniform. But, as we artificially boost the economy by furthering tax cuts and possibly going to war, so we are getting ready for another economic and social collapse, not only in the United States but all over the world.

Reference

Krugman, Paul Red Tide Rising. The Tax Cut starts to bite.Originally published in The New York Times, 7.6.01, http://www.pkarchive.org/column/7601.html

Bush: Urgent need for 'bold' economic plan CNN News, January 7, 2003 http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/07/economic.stimulus/index.html

Howe, Neil, Jackson, Richard A MORE RESPONSIBLE FISCAL COURSE December 19, 2002 Concord Coalition, Volume VIII, Number 5 - http://www.concordcoalition.org/facing_facts/alert_v8_n5.html

Berry, John M. Analysis Finds Little Gain in Tax-Cut Plan. 2 Economists Assess Dividend Proposal January 6, 2003 Washington Post Staff Writer, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14740-2003Jan5.html