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Thursday, January 9, 2003 |
Oops [a repost of last night's entry] [Not sure what I did, but a post from last night that is referenced below was inadvertantly deleted. Here it is]
There are some indications that the President's economic stimulus package underwent some major revisions in the last few days before his speech in Chicago. It seems that what was intended to be a large cut in the tax on dividends became a repeal of all taxes on them. As late as Monday night , close advisors were adding a program to aid in retraining workers. Such 11th hour tinkering is imprudent for such a large, complex and vitally important initiative.
Such an ad-hoc approach to the President's economic plan raises the question of why? It certainly seems out of character for a White House that is generally not so cavalier. I wonder if the reason is that the administration has some knowledge not yet available to the public. One possibility is that internal polls have shown a continuation of the downward trend in the President's approval ratings (possibly confirming the poll published last week in Time (if multiple polls come out showing approval ratings in the low 50s, that would put a few dents in the Republican invincibility that was proclaimed just two months ago), or, more likely, the White House may some come to believe that the economic reports coming in the next few days (notably Jobless rate for December and preliminary consumer sentiment for January) may show continued weakness, and the administration needed a big initiative so that they would appear to be ahead of the problem. (The New Republic has a different explanation )
It's possible that President Bush's $600 billion plan is meant to be, at least in part, a prop to hold up the stock market (the most widely reported economic barometer) through a rough spot.
9:56:05 PM 
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Beware of Grandma The advice most frequently given to new parents is likely some form of "never take your eyes off of the baby". I suppose this is meant to prevent babies rolling off of couches and changing tables, or stuffing something bad in their mouths. But constant vigilance also prevents your mother-in-law from teaching your child to spit. Trust me, this qualifies as A Very Bad Thing.
Last week, I thought of pancakes as a simple, pleasant and easily prepared comfort food. This week I'm wiping sodden pancake goo out of my eyes, my hair, and off of my glasses. Possibly grandma isn't ready for unsupervised visitation.
9:51:10 PM
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Zogby Poll In the post below, I speculated about the White House being aware of some bad news coming, and thus did some late night recasting of the economic plan to make it more impressive. Perhaps the administration's polls showed something similar to what the most recent Zogby Poll(be sure to read the full post, since there are other interesting findings) found: that a majority of Americans are losing faith in the leadership of George Bush.
Slightly more than one in three voters (35%) say they would vote to re-elect President Bush regardless of who he runs against, compared to 56% who would not vote to re-elect Bush regardless of who he runs against.
Results also show that voters believe Democrats over Republicans are the party better able to handle jobs/economy (Democrats 43%, Republicans 36%), healthcare (Democrats 47%, Republicans 32%), the environment (Democrats 55%, Republicans 28%), and traditional values like tolerance (Democrats 45%, Republicans 30%).
Perhaps the elimination of the tax on dividend was meant to be a bold, visionary move to revitalize the conservative base. (I found the Zogby piece thanks to Daily Kos. Be sure to check out his comments about these numbers)
9:28:11 PM
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© Copyright 2003 Douglas Anders.
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