Quote: "It’s time to start taking seriously the proposition that the American economy under the Bush administration is the best in the nation’s history." (Source.)
Some representative data:
Creating future debt does not make for the best economy ever.
Discuss.
With purple-colored glasses, you would not be able to see the graph in this post. Thus, future looks great with purple-colored glasses.
The Canadian Loonie has just recently surpassed the US Dollar, in part because of a slowdown in the U.S. economy. The last time Canadian currency surpassed U.S. currency was back in the seventies.
So, I guess I'd have to disagree with the quote. But that's just my 2.0398 cents.
I think it's interesting that the only president in the last 25 years to slow down and even slightly decrease the national debt was a Democrat.
Tax and Spend my foot!
How does that graph look if debt is a percentage of GDP? (I suspect it still looks bad, but not quite as bad.) Also, what does government spending look like as a percentage of GDP over time? (I suspect that also looks bad, i.e., shows a strong upward trend.)
Any correction to the trend needs to involve spending cuts, not just tax increases. In particular, nondiscretionary spending is out of control, e.g., as a result of the Republican Medicare drug bill. It's high time to convert all federal transfer payments into real safety nets for those who need them, rather than transferring funds to the wealthy. I'll happily give up my Social Security (I don't expect to get any, anyway, nor to need it) and Medicare entitlements in return for reduced payroll taxes for the lowest-paid Americans.
It looks like this graph includes social security obligations, which is a bit fanciful; the government will undoubtedly renege on those obligations, at least to the wealthier, by means testing them. That's the problem with turning a whole sector of the economy over to the gummint, and it looks like we're set to turn the health care sector over next.
By the way, if you think the debt decreased 1992-2000, you need to learn to read a graph.
If anyone's interested in a longer view, I made a graph similar to this last year. The differences with my graph were that I also scaled the debt to population and that I went back to 1800.
http://spectroscope.blogspot.com/2006/03/fun-with-numbers-federal-debt…
See also United States National Debt (1938 to Present) - An Analysis of the Presidents Who Are Responsible for the Borrowing by Steve McGourty. It shows US National Debt by presidential term and also shows US National Debt versus percent of GDP.
Gerard is right. What we need is a corporation that will take care of old, poor people.