Roll Call executive editor Mort Kondracke has points showing why it will be so hard for McCain to win any economic argument with Obama in the fall: [Last February], a team of four Democratic Congressmen led by Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) demolished a team of Republicans led by Rep. Adam Putnam (Fla.) by citing evidence Americans are not better off than they were when Bush became president.
Median household income in the United States rose $6,000 in the Clinton administration, to $49,163, but fell to $48,023 during Bush's first six years in office.
the economy grew by an average of 4% during the Clinton years and created an average 1.8 million jobs a year. Under Bush, gross domestic product has grown just 2.7% a year and created 369,000 jobs a year - and [the current] recession [will] cut even those numbers.
The price of gasoline in 2001 was $1.39 per gallon. Now, it's $4. The number of Americans lacking health insurance was 38 million; now, it's 47 million. The national debt was $5.7 trillion in 2001; now, it's $9.2 trillion. The dollar was worth 1.07 euro; now, it's .68. The poverty rate, college costs, take-home pay, personal indebtedness, foreign oil dependency and the trade deficit all are worse than they were when Bush took office.
According to the Brookings Institution, two-thirds of Bush's tax cuts went to those in the top 20% of income and left those making less than $100,000 a year paying more of the total burden of federal taxes than any other income group.
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