So, apparently he got the figures, and one presumes the chart, from there.

Sounds like you owe Luskin an apology, Steve.

See the update, not only does it look like the Luskin isn't reading his chart correctly, he is making up his own data.

Cirby,

Iâ??m just wondering what you think happened in the first two months of the Bush Presidency that caused the recession so quickly.

Can you re-read my post, in particular the parts about linking recessions and expansions to Presidents?

â?¦and that whole â??came out of the recession in November 2001â?³ concept is a bit disingenuous, since we were dead in the middle of the 9/11 economic shock, and if you think we were recovered from that any time in the next few months, youâ??re dreaming. I was stil seeing effects from it over a year later in my business.

Wow, talk about generalizing from an unrepresentative sample. Okay, you're right Bush was doing a horrible job up through all of 2001 and 2002 as well. Happy? Sheesh.

Dave,

Stock market peaked in Feb of 2000.

The definition of a recession means negative growth for two quarters.

Uhhmmm, the stock market isn't used in determining when the country is in recession. Your second definition is out dated. For example, if we used it there was no recession in 2001 as growth was not negative for any single month.

The definition of a recession means negative growth for two quarters.

I don't think there is much Bush could have done in his first six months in office to avert the recession.

...and that whole "came out of the recession in November 2001" concept is a bit disingenuous, since we were dead in the middle of the 9/11 economic shock, and if you think we were recovered from that any time in the next few months, you're dreaming. I was stil seeing effects from it over a year later in my business.

As noted above, tax cuts do always work, since they're used so seldom. We're certainly well on the wrong side of the Laffer Curve.

Sorry, Steve; No sale. The chart clearly shows the Resession was starting at the end of Q2, 2000.

The fed funds rate â?? the overnight interest rate administered by Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve â?? peaked at 6.5 percent in 2000, and had to be lowered in an emergency move on January 3, 2001, "in light of further weakening of sales and production" (during the Clinton administration).

Which goes to my point that recessions being linked to Presidents is dumb.

The one and only piece of evidence offered by Media Matters thatâ??s to the contrary is that fact that the National Bureau of Economic Research set the beginning of the last recession at March 2001 â?? two months into the Bush administration. Check that date on the chart above: This well-respected economic research group set the beginning of the recession after GDP growth had already crashed from almost 5 percent to near zero.

Good God Luskin can't even read his own graph...or is terribly dishonest. And the reality is that in the third quarter of 2000 economic growth was negative, but bounced back to over 2% the following quarter. And Luskin's notion that GDP is the only thing that matters when it comes to determining a recession is misleading.

In fact, NBER has been on the verge of changing the recessionâ??s start date for this very reason.

Yep, on the verge for over 2 freaking years.

Try again Bithead.

Charlie,

I think most economists would accept the Laffer curve in theory, some might argue which side we are on, but I bet many would firgure we are near the top or the left hand side. But I think economists agree on lots of stuff, but the stuff they disagree on is much more hard to nail down and more fun to watch.

YAJ,

I'd agree if it were a simplification of the tax code, but that isn't what we got. As for deficits acting as a break on spending...I wish it were true, but as Dick Cheney reportedly said, "The 80's taught us that deficits just don't matter." Or something like that.

What it all really boils down to is the percentage of the GDP confiscated by the government in the form of taxes and the percentage of the GDP spent by the government. Given deficit and surplus spending, these don't have to be the same amounts.

Now spending by the government tends to be less efficient than spending by private enterprise. The reasons for this are many, but boil down to a lower standard of stewardship when it is other people's money. GDP left to be controlled by private enterprise would likely cause an increase in GDP assuming the private economy continued to show productivity gain (which is certainly the long term way to bet when there is a good balance between government intrusion/regulation - such as every one stops at a stop sign vs market distortions such as state monopolies or affirmative action.

So shouldn't some of the increase in tax revenue be assigned to productivity gains as an indirect impact of tax cuts, rather than a direct laffer curve impact.

And yes, I know that spending has gone way up in conjunction with the tax cuts, but it could have gone up even higher (e.g. national health care).

On your more general point, though --- is there any economics that wouldn't qualify? Something as straightforward as the Laffer curve, which can be derived from first principles and a bare hint of mathematical sophistication, still seems to be controversial, and there never seems to be any problem getting two economists to take opposite sides of any economic question, no matter how simple.

The claim that the last recession started under Clinton is absolutely true. To deny this is not only to blame Bush for a problem he didn't cause, but to deprive him of the credit for fixing it with effective policies â?? which is exactly why the Left is so eager in this case. Here, however, are the facts....

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