An absolute reprehensible impact of Bush policy IMO with known shortfalls in SS and Medicare coming. Another problem with your data is no way to measure background growth without the tax cuts or business lost due to tax cuts invested over seas. You simply assume any uptick is due to tax cuts rather than the normal economic cycle. I say they didn'yt work because the uptick was worse than normal. This is especially problematic for the tax cut stimulous crowd because the Clinton era upturn was faster without any tax cuts. The Republican tax cut theory is overly simplistic because it assumes tax cut money will be spent or reinvested in the US. Investing over seas or paying off debt instead nullifies the desired impact.

I think it's hilarious people claim wealthy people voted against their interests if they voted for Obama when Republican economic policies wrecked the economy. That was only in the interest of some CEOs and private equity firms. Hoover did the same thing with a similar hands off business philosophy. It's time for everyone to realize that the government can wreck the economy with either too little or too much control and that a good balance is a tough to hit moving tsarget that can't be hit by mindlessly repeating old dogma. If I had registered in my new state in time I would have voted for McCain based on Iraq not economic policy although I believe he would have been a far better economic steward than Bush, and that Obama could easily go too far the other way.

Regards,
Mark