Friday, October 26, 2007

Recession in last throes



Dick Cheney did an interview with Larry "Kuds" Kudlow for CNBC. By Cheney's standards it's not the worst. He did repeat the standard Bush lie that most of the people paying the top rate of personal income tax are small businesses. This is the myth of small business owners who haven't set up as corporations and so pay the personal rate. For every one of those people, there are ten high income professionals (doctors, lawyers, investment bankers) who put quasi-corporate income (e.g. from partnerships) on their personal taxes. That's who Bush thinks most needs a tax cut.

Anyway, Cheney was asked about the many signs that the economy is in trouble:

And the suggestion that somehow it's hard times out there, I just -- I think is a misstatement. Clearly, there are pockets where people run into difficulties, where we have economic slowdown for one reason or another -- Michigan is still having troubles because of the auto industry and so forth -- but I think overall, in terms of macroeconomic policy and what's worked for the economy for the last several years now, it's what the President put in place, not what Senator Clinton suggested.

So other than Detroit, there's no problem. Is he reading any newspapers?

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