Bushshit confident about economy for 2006Fri Jan 6, 2006 17:11
Bushshit confident about economy for 2006
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Bush's visit focuses on economy
By Mark Silva
Tribune national correspondent
Published January 6, 2006, 2:15 PM CST
Arriving in Chicago with news of an improved economy, President Bush made an impassioned pitch today for the tax cuts that he secured during his first term and implored Congress to make them permanent.
With the government's report today that unemployment has reached its lowest point in five years � and with the administration touting 4.5 million new jobs created since May 2003 � Bush is seizing on the gains of a growing economy as justification for his policy of cutting taxes.
"The American economy heads into 2006 with a full head of steam,'' Bush said at a noon luncheon of the Economic Club of Chicago in a downtown hotel ballroom. "The American consumer is confident� Our trust in the American people has brought us through some tough times� and we've been through a lot.''
Yet Democratic leaders, calling the most recent addition of 108,000 new jobs in December "anemic,'' maintain that the benefits of tax relief that Bush touts have not reached the great majority of American workers.
While the unemployment rate has dipped from 5 to 4.9 percent, the 108,000 new jobs added in December represent a significant slowing in job growth � following a 305,000 gain November, according to new Labor Department estimates released on today.
Still, as Bush credits sweeping tax cuts won during his first term for economic gains made during the past few years, the president is calling on Congress to make those cuts permanent during his remaining years.
"There are a lot of people in Washington who don't believe in tax cuts,'' Bush told a friendly, business-suited audience that frequently interrupted his talk of tax cuts with applause. "The truth of the matter is, by cutting taxes when we did, we've had the fastest growing economy of any major industrial nation.
"Just as this economy is getting going, there are some in Washington who want to take this money out of your pocket,'' Bush said, issuing a firmly voiced demand: "The United States Congress must make the tax cuts permanent.''
Bush also offered an upbeat assessment of his own first term � devoting little time here to talk about the war in Iraq or broader war against terrorism. He cited the education reforms of his No Child Left Behind Act for starting to close an "achievement gap'' between low-income and more affluent children, black and white, Hispanics and non-Hispanics.
"There is an achievement gap in America that is inexcusable, and it's beginning to close,'' Bush said. "We are saying to school boards, 'If you've got a problem, correct it before it is too late."
"We can't guess any more in America,'' Bush said. "If we want to know, we've got to measure.''
However, weakened by a bruising year of growing public opposition to the war in Iraq and a double-digit decline in public approval of the overall job he is performing as president, Bush lacks the political standing needed to urge Congress to make his tax cuts permanent this year.
Instead, strategists say, the president will devote much of this year to drawing public attention to what the administration perceives as the benefits of Bush's tax cuts, as he prepares to make the case for making those tax cuts permanent during the remaining two years of his second term.
"The bottom line is he truly believes, as we believe, that by leaving more money in peoples' hands and allowing them to spend it, that has propelled the economy,'' said Al Hubbard, the president's chief economic adviser, who accompanied Bush on his visit to Chicago.
"The sooner we make (the tax cuts) permanent, the better for the economy,'' Hubbard said in an interview. "I am encouraging him to make that a top priority.''
Critics complain that the president's tax cuts are compounding a burdensome federal budget deficit, which reached a record $412 billion in 2004 and has become a drag on the American economy.
The White House concedes that the emergency costs of recovery following Hurricane Katrina's devastation along the Gulf Coast will add to deficit spending this year.
Yet, noting that the deficit for 2005 already has been reduced to $331 billion, the president's chief economic adviser insisted that Bush is on track to keeping his reelection campaign promise of cutting the deficit in half by 2009, when Bush retires from office.
"The deficit has fallen dramatically,'' Hubbard said. "Unfortunately, because of Katrina, you may see a little bit of a bounce-back this year. But we are definitely on track to cut it in half by 2009.''
The president will call on Congress to rein in discretionary spending this year � a plea he underscored during today's address at the Chicago Hilton & Towers Hotel � when he delivers his annual State of the Union address Jan. 31 to a joint session of Congress.
That will be followed, White House insiders say, by uncomfortable belt-tightening in the new federal budget that the president will propose in early February. What remains uncertain is how much appetite a Republican-run Congress will have for deep budget cutting in a mid-term election year in which Democrats are fighting for control of the House or Senate.
While Bush heralded the news of low unemployment, critics maintained that 108,000 new jobs are nothing to brag about. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) dismissed the gain as "anemic.''
But the president's Republican allies suggested that the year-end unemployment report has served to place a crown on a strong year.
"This is just what we needed to cap a year of surging economic activity, and it is only fitting that President Bush is in Illinois today visiting the Chicago Board of Trade and carrying this good economic news straight to the American people,'' said House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), citing a decline in unemployment in Illinois as well, from 5.5 to 5.3 percent.
Hastert traveled here with Bush, who also was joined by Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) at the Economic Club luncheon.
In Chicago, the president also touted the benefits of free and competitive international trade for the American economy.
"My view of trade is this: If we can get a level playing field, American manufacturers, farmers and entrepreneurs can compete with any body any time any place in the world,'' Bush said.
"I'm telling you, it's in the farmers' interest that we're selling soybeans in China,'' he said. "If we wall ourselves off from the rest of the world, a bunch of other people are going to take up the opportunity for free trade.''
Earlier today, Bush visited the Chicago Board of Trade. The board reported a 12.9 percent increase in the average daily trading of its commodities and financial futures in 2005, and an overall 25.8 percent increase in the electronic trading that the board initiated in 1994.
The Hilton speech capped a day of intensive White House outreach throughout the country aimed at promoting job growth and entrepreneurship. Besides Bush's visit to Chicago, the administration scheduled nearly 30 events involving Vice President Dick Cheney and Cabinet members to tout the White House record on the economy.
Events ranged from a Cheney speech at a Harley-Davidson plant in Kansas City to an assistant labor secretary's address before a Green Bay, Wis., employment group at the Brett Favre Steakhouse.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in advance of the president's trip that Bush would focus on three points--job growth, job training and work to cut the deficit.
Tribune political reporter Rick Pearson contributed to this story.
mdsilva@tribune.com
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What is wrong with Bush's mouth when he speaks???
LISTEN TO THE LAST FIVE MINUTES FROM A CALLER! WOW!!!!
http://www.charlesgoyette.com/archive/media/2006-01-06-Charles-03.mp3
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