The Economy Lags For Most

Paul Kruugman notes that while economic growth has been stronger in the past 2 years than during the first 3 years of the Bush Administration, it has not translated into most people seeing their economic situation improving. As he rightly notes, this is because it is absorbed in corporate profits, CEO and other executive pay increases and increases in health care costs and gas prices. This is the economic legacy of the Bush Administration: moderate net economic growth, huge increases in corporate profit and executive compensation, no action to reduce medical costs and near zero employment or wage growth when adjusted for the growth in the labor force and inflation, respectively. This is an abysmal record for anyone who has concern for the general economic condition of the nation (and for which Bush does not seem to care). All these factors lead to further economic stratification, which hurts 'the family' that Bush seems to care for so much with his rhetoric on divorce, abortion, gay marriage, etc. It also exposes rather dramatically, the real desires of Bush when it comes to economics (the effect of government activity felt more than any other): Enrich those who are rich and well-connected at the expence of those who are not rich and do not have access to the levers of power. In a nation founded upon the idealistic construct that "All men [i.e., people] are created equal", Bush's actions demonstrate his disdain for this ideal. He harkens the return of the 19th century, where the robber barons profited on the backs of the rest of the people.