The Viagra Solution--Bush to Keep Economy Hard for Another Year
President Considers A Boost to Economy State of Union Speech May Detail Proposal
By Peter Baker Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, January 4, 2008; A03
With the price of oil hovering near $100 a barrel and overall economic anxiety on the rise, President Bush said yesterday that he may use his upcoming State of the Union address to propose a stimulus package intended to promote growth and shore up weak parts of the economy.
Forecasting his priorities as he enters his final full year in office, Bush said he is soliciting ideas from advisers about ways to address particular economic troubles. However, he did not commit to taking new action amid an internal administration debate about whether and how the government could influence the situation.
"In terms of any stimulus package, we're considering all options, and I probably won't make up my mind as to whether or not I lay one out until the State of the Union," Bush told the Reuters news agency in an interview. He added: "We are listening to a lot of good ideas from different people. We've got our people out there carefully, not only monitoring this situation but listening to . . . possible remedies."
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And then there's the memory of those embarrassing Bob Dole ads for erectile dysfunction to show just how far this administration is willing to go to 'stimulate' an economy that's turned flaccid.
Not to worry--this president is always ready to keep the ecstasy alive with tax cuts to the rich, benefit cuts to the poor and profiteering to anyone in the armaments or 'privatizing' industry. It has become an industry and is the primary black-hole that sucks in hundreds of billions without a trace.
You can have enormous concentrations of wealth or you can have democracy, but you cannot have both. -- Louis Brandeis
Brandeis, a Supreme Court Justice for whom a university is named, was a believer in social equality and privacy--two particularly scarce qualities in the modern court.
It is the political requirement of sitting presidents to juice the economy in election years and I don't criticize Bush for that, a common failing of presidencies that value party-politics over the health and welfare of the nation they lead. But Bush policy has thus far ravaged the national debt, seen the dollar drop by half in value and been witness to an enormous banking fraud that may yet bring down the world economy.
Viagra is the last possible weapon of this failed president and his failed economic advisors. But the national monetary policy is sore and inflamed, trembling with too much unnatural stimulation already.
For god's sake, George, quit fiddling with it.