History is Written by the Victors

The Republicans are all too aware of this reality. Here, we see Mary Matalin doing her best:

I was there. We inherited a recession from President Clinton and we inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation’s history. And President Bush dealt with it. And within a year of his presidency at this comparable time, unemployment was at 5 percent. And we were creating jobs.

Well in reality the recession started in mid-2001, so Clinton set up the conditions for that recession (actually, it was just cyclical, as all recessions and expansions are). Bush cut taxes after 9/11 and unemployment continued to rise until levelling off mid-2002. But his job creation was anemic compared to that under Clinton.

Arguing that the tax cuts ended the recession is completely disingenuous. First of all, the tax cuts alone did not solve the problem. On top of that, deregulation of the banking and finance industries, plus massive outsourcing of jobs overseas, gave companies the conditions it needed to post record profits. But during that time, real wages dropped, personal debt grew at a record pace, and government debt climbed to over $10 trillion. The ensuing economic collapse, brought about by cyclical patterns (there was only so much we could do buying and selling each other's homes), was passed onto Obama, who has now had to raise the debt ceiling to keep the economy from tanking even further.

Matalin is a disgusting person, always has been. That she continues to be asked serious questions just shows how deeply divorced from reality the mainstream media are.