Leaving office, President Bush claimed "that he took 'a deliberate and comprehensive approach' to preventing terrorism that combined military action overseas with strong defensive measures at home."

[As early as 2002] "We knew that the mortgage-brokerage industry was corrupt... Where we would have gotten a sense of what was really going on was the point where the mortgage was sold knowing that it was a piece of dung and it would be turned into a security. But the agents with the expertise had been diverted to counterterrorism."
[. . . . FBI Director Robert] "Mueller actually circumvented the Justice Department and the OMB to get resources. But he was shut down" by the [Bush A]dministration. [. . . . Testifying in October 2004, ] Chris Swecker, then assistant director of the criminal investigation division said ... "The potential impact of mortgage fraud on financial institutions in the stock market is clear. If fraudulent practices become systemic within the mortgage industry and mortgage fraud is allowed to become unrestrained, it will ultimately place financial institutions at risk and have adverse effects on the stock market."

posted by orthogonality on Jan 29, 2009 - 71 comments

A very special 'This American Life' about an administration with the endemic belief that laws only apply to the little people, and a limitless refusal to concede on even petty issues, no matter the costs. The highlight is about immigrant widows of US citizens (30:50). The program also discusses the constitutional beliefs of the presidential candidates. [more inside]
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 on Apr 2, 2008 - 43 comments

The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush. "The next president will have to deal with yet another crippling legacy of George W. Bush: the economy. A Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz, sees a generation-long struggle to recoup." [Via Firedoglake.]
posted by homunculus on Nov 18, 2007 - 70 comments

Income inequality continues to rise. Or maybe not.

Professors Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty and the Cato Institute's Alan Reynolds debate on how to measure[PDF] income inequality. Despite the ongoing debate, President Bush has decided, "The fact is that income inequality is real; it's been rising for more than 25 years."
posted by peeedro on Mar 30, 2007 - 81 comments

President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations. Notice of the development came in a brief entry in the Federal Register, dated May 5, 2006, that was opaque to the untrained eye.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket on May 24, 2006 - 55 comments

Framing the Economic Debate. If you read Metafilter, you've no doubt seen a few links criticizing Bush's handling of the economy. The unabashed partisans at the Heritage Foundation have put together a document from which many of Bush's talking points about the economy (tonight, and throughout the campaign) are likely to come.
posted by Kwantsar on Oct 8, 2004 - 16 comments

On eve of tonight's debate, more bad news for Bush. The economy stumbled last month, with only 96,000 new jobs -- far short of the 138,000 jobs the Bush Administration predicted, or the 150,000 new jobs needed every month just to keep up with population growth. Another interesting tidbit is that 37,000 of the 96,000 new jobs are government employees, up from 24,000 in August and 11,000 in July. Is the timing coincidental? Meanwhile, electoral-vote.com changed their methodology -- again -- so that it more accurately reflects recent poll results. The difference is striking.
posted by insomnia_lj on Oct 8, 2004 - 36 comments

Tax Man Bush says tax cuts stimulate the economy. Unfortunately, he's fallen more than 2.2 million jobs short of the projection made by his own economists.
posted by Postroad on Jul 28, 2004 - 6 comments

Quick, Hide The Body! "...But the Bush administration chose to keep the findings out of the annual budget report for fiscal year 2004, published in February, as the White House campaigned for a tax-cut package that critics claim will expand future deficits. The study asserts that sharp tax increases, massive spending cuts or a painful mix of both are unavoidable if the US is to meet benefit promises to future generations. It estimates that closing the gap would require the equivalent of an immediate and permanent 66 per cent across-the-board income tax increase."
posted by owillis on May 28, 2003 - 18 comments

Bush Cited Non-Existent eport There was only one problem with President George W. Bush's claim Thursday that the nation's top economists forecast substantial economic growth if Congress passed the president's tax cut: The forecast with that conclusion doesn't exist.
posted by orange swan on Feb 24, 2003 - 82 comments

Is the currency that oil is denominated in the real reason for the Iraq War? "The Federal Reserve's greatest nightmare is that OPEC will switch its international transactions from a dollar standard to a euro standard. Iraq actually made this switch in Nov. 2000 (when the euro was worth around 80 cents), and has actually made off like a bandit considering the dollar's steady depreciation against the euro. (Note: the dollar declined 17% against the euro in 2002.)"
posted by thedailygrowl on Feb 11, 2003 - 35 comments

How Bush's economic stimulus proposal may affect you. An easy to understand explanation of what we might expect from Bush's tax cut proposal to be announced on Tuesday.
posted by Ron on Jan 6, 2003 - 48 comments

"Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz talks about the corporate looting spree and Bush's woeful mismanagement of the economy." "The fiscal mismanagement of the current administration -- leading to a change in the fiscal position of the United States over the past year -- is absolutely phenomenal; going from huge surpluses to huge deficits and the deficits are probably going to be larger than people anticipated."
posted by semmi on Jul 6, 2002 - 26 comments

The Saudis are about to deliver an ultimatum to Bush In a bleak assessment, he [Prince Abdullah] said there was talk within the Saudi royal family and in Arab capitals of using the "oil weapon" against the United States, and demanding that the United States leave strategic military bases in the region. Such measures, he said, would be a "strategic debacle for the United States." How should Bush respond?
posted by Rastafari on Apr 25, 2002 - 58 comments

I'm curious, isn't this exactly opposite of what we're being told? I'm always hearing the wealthy are benefitting somehow from GWB's new tax plan. I'm certainly no-where near the top 5%, and now I don't want to be.
posted by the_0ne on Apr 9, 2002 - 54 comments

Warning signs on the horizon... WARNING Political: Democrats and Repubs point fingers over who's to blame about current and future economic problems. Ok, who forgot that 5 weeks of political indecision has had a big, bad toll on the economy? Also, another in a long series of funny dubya pictures. Check the large hands. How'd they get so big?
posted by evad on Dec 21, 2000 - 17 comments