Rubin's Tax Gambit

By the way, how does Mr. Rubin continue to dodge any historical accountability for the dot-com bust of 2000 and the recession that followed? In the liberal economic narrative, we are supposed to believe that the Clinton Administration somehow ended in 1999, and that Mr. Bush is to blame for everything that followed. Yet the Nasdaq peak came in the spring of 2000 and the third quarter of that year recorded negative growth. The shallow recession began in March 2001, with slower-than-average growth continuing until the tax cuts on dividends and the top marginal income rate passed in 2003 and the expansion moved into high gear.

One wonders.

Prosperity Amid the Gloom

Nancy Pelosi vows that if Democrats capture Congress they will "jump-start our economy." A "jump-start " is administered to a stalled vehicle. But since the Bush tax cuts went into effect in 2003, the economy's growth rate (3.5 percent) has been better than the average for the 1980s (3.1) and 1990s (3.3). Today's unemployment rate (4.6 percent) is lower than the average for the 1990s (5.8) -- lower, in fact, than the average for the past 40 years (6.0). Some stall.