Bush signed his tax cut today, hoping that this new attempt will stimulate the economy.
Why can’t Bush stimulate the economy? Doesn’t the economy find him attractive? Hasn’t he shown the economy his love and devotion, creating an environment wherein she can feel safe to let herself go a little bit?
Well, no.
Maybe it has something to do with his private life, but Clinton sure knew how to stimulate the economy. He did a hundred little things, massaging so many different areas so subtly and expertly, that by the mid 90’s he’d worked the economy up into a state of breathless stimulation generally only seen in bodice-rippin’ airport novels. [The grateful economy actually wrote a letter to the Fortune Magazine Forum in 1997. Perhaps you remember it - “Dear Forum, I never thought I’d be writing to you. But this actually happened to me…”]
Bush’s approach has been somewhat different, to say the least. His initial economy-stimulating strategy, cutting taxes, didn’t work. Left the economy completely cold. His solution to this problem has been typically inelegant: He’s doing the same thing again and again, only faster and harder. You don’t need to be a Casanova or an Adam Smith to realize that this isn’t necessarily an effective strategy.
[George W. Bush: Wooing the economy with
determination and a teeny tiny flag.]
And now Bush’s repetitive and clumsy fumblings carry an added handicap. The tax cut was signed “a day after Bush — with no comment or ceremony — signed a bill allowing the federal government to borrow as much as $7.4 trillion.”
Our poor economy! How can she concentrate on getting stimulated when she’s becoming increasingly preoccupied with the fact that the suite in which she’s being wooed isn’t even paid for!? I’m not Paul Krugman, but I’m relatively certain that our economy is the type who’d feel a lot more responsive to stimulation in a setting that has a bit less of a rented-by-the-hour feel to it.
In short: It looks like our economy is going to have to find some enterprising Congresspeople on the side if there’s going to be any stimulation at all. Although it is, of course, possible that she might find opportunity to stimulate herself while the notoriously inattentive Bush is out doing something else. Don’t expect a boom from that, but it’d be better than nothing.
And also: Poor, poor Laura.
Fanny Roborat
14 comments
t.a.
May 28, 2003 at 4:34 pm
1it seems like bush is thinking a tax cut will get the economy so drunk, she’ll forget how he’s ignored her for so long and gladly open her legs for him. yea, that’s what a woman wants: true romance.
(and we know how well men perform when they are full of booze)
t.a.
May 28, 2003 at 4:34 pm
2it seems like bush is thinking a tax cut will get the economy so drunk, she’ll forget how he’s ignored her for so long and gladly open her legs for him. yea, that’s what a woman wants: true romance.
(and we know how well men perform when they are full of booze)
jerry
May 28, 2003 at 6:03 pm
3The economy was stimulated during the Clinton years but it was more like a night of poppin’ Ecstasy and Viagra. It felt great at the time and it looked like it could rage forever but alas, it was but an illusion. Stocks for companies that produced nothing but hype (most of the high tech sector) went flaccid. And then the coyote-ugly accounting practices used to strengthen long runs of performance!! When it woke up, it had a hangover that even McDonald’s cheeseburgers and BC powder couldn’t dent. The initial advances of the current administration were like a B-12 shot. It couldn’t stop the vomiting, but it did hold the economies hair back and got her into the shower to start cleaning up.
Dee
May 28, 2003 at 6:55 pm
4Gosh. Well, they DO say that all good writing comes from personal experience.
Pat R.
May 28, 2003 at 9:03 pm
5Oh, yeah — “The initial advances of the current administration were like a B-12 shot. It couldn’t stop the vomiting, but it did hold the economies {sic!} hair back and got her into the shower to start cleaning up.” Where the current administration then began repeatedly reaming her, using one of its flailing feet to shove as much $$$$ as possible toward a teeny group of super rich voyeurs (who raked it happily in), while attempting to distract everyone else with blather about WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (er, where were they again? Maryland, you say?) and WAR (oil) OF (oil) LIBERATION.
Meanwhile, the administration’s apologists continue with their boringly-familiar tactics of dumping on Clinton, hilariously exaggerated self-righteous posturing, and trying to bludgeon dissent into silence.
Zzzzzzzzzz….
Farberwear
May 28, 2003 at 11:05 pm
6Oh, Pat beat me to it. The economy won’t be stimulated, but boy will it ever get f… Oh, hello Mrs. Felber!
Chicory
May 29, 2003 at 12:27 pm
7Wasn’t it Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld who asked the economy to “bend over”?
Don
May 29, 2003 at 2:20 pm
8And now we know the sound of one hand stimulating the economy. The question, of course, if there is no intelligent being there to hear it, does it make a sound?
Tuxedo Slack
May 29, 2003 at 4:16 pm
9The Pit R. Pat R. of a great big mind:
May I just cut and paste this, when and as needed, into the comments section of every liberal blog where conservatrolls lurk?
Anonymous
May 29, 2003 at 5:20 pm
10My question is can any of the current Dem candidates step to the plate and show how they will stimulate her better?
I just don’t see Lieberman or Gephart stimulating anything. I am sure Kerry and Edwards think they are great stimulaters- but my guess is they don’t measure up. Maybe Dean- he has a surprising JFK thing going on….
Ken, Just Ken...
May 29, 2003 at 6:25 pm
11Oh Man,
I just read this blog using a public terminal in a restaurant and nearly choked on a Jalepeno Popper.
Boy, do you have a way with words.
Tuxedo Slack
May 30, 2003 at 2:58 pm
12Somebody who’s too good to leave their name asks:
Well, if your idea of stimulation is (in the freely remembered words of the much-missed Paul Riddell on what out-of-town businesses do to the Dallas economy) wearing a bunny suit, having your head shoved in an overflowing toilet, being cornholed with a three-foot sandstone strap-on, and being let up for air at intervals just long enough to shout “YES, DADDY! IT SMELLS LIKE SHIT AND I LOVE IT!”
…if that’s what you go for, go for it. Just leave out those of us who don’t get our jollies thus, please.
draco
May 31, 2003 at 2:01 pm
13Actually, the caption should read “itty-bitty,” echoing prez’s opinion of the tax cut he now trumpets.
Brian
June 3, 2003 at 4:17 pm
14First I read this:
And then spewed coffee all over my computer, I was laughing so hard. Clinton? Massaging areas of the economy not only subtly but also expertly? Are you joking? Do you mean NAFTA? The WTO? What a joke.