Cross-posted at Tall Tales
The President of the United States made a remarkable statement on Saturday:
Those of you who have followed my career know that I'm a free market person -- until you're told that if you don't take decisive measures then it's conceivable that our country could go into a depression greater than the Great Depression.
The gravity of this admission is hard to overstate.
The sitting President -- a self-proclaimed "supply-sider" who was insisting as recently as July that "the system is basically sound" and that we should "have confidence in the long-term foundation of our economy" -- has now essentially admitted that he had to abandon his deregulatory, supply-side policies in the closing hours of his Presidency because they led us to the brink of the worst economic collapse in American history.
Sure, President Bush implies that the prospect of a Greater Depression has now been mitigated by his "decisive action." But given that his administration fundamentally reversed course on the nature of that action just last week, one could be forgiven for finding this reassurance less than fully convincing.
Speaking of reversing course, it's also worth recalling how certain the President was just last year about the health of the economy:
I want the American people to take a good look at this economy of ours. The world is strong -- the world economy is strong. I happen to believe one of the main reasons why is because we remain strong.
The President's admission Saturday that, far from being "strong," the Bush Economy has brought us to the brink of a Greater Depression is nothing short of stunning.
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Bush's "Basically Sound" and "Strong" Quotes Collected in Yeah, Right pages 55 & 70
Online Sources: Strong; Basically Sound
Yeah, Right: "This Economy Is Strong" and Other Tall Tales