I kind of recall the Bush years as years of stagnation for the middle class, myself. Kind of "meh" as far as incomes went. YMMV. That's until the bottom fell out of the housing market, and everything went to hell.
Yeah, I'll blame Bush, because the starting point was so bad. Oh, and one of my rules of thumb is that whatever happens economically in about the first six months of a President's administration belongs to the predecessor, because it takes that long for a new administration's policies to pass through Congress and take effect. It's not as though the new President can wave a wand and change the direction of the economy on Jan. 20. And I'm willing to say the same about the transition between Clinton and Bush in '01.
Finally, anyone who's truly rich and is paying ~33% in taxes has really crappy tax advisors. Mitt seems to have stabilized his tax payments around 15% or so; meanwhile, I have a comfortable income [[not too many extravagances, but comfortable), and I paid around 21% last year. In any event, is there any evidence that continual tax decreases for the top 5%, or 1%, or 0.1% are associated with better economic performance?
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