...our newspapers and TV talking heads are obsessed with stories of mass "inequality" and "middle-class squeeze" and "jobs shipped abroad" and "falling behind."
Reality is quite different, of course. But reality can never be permitted to get in the way of Bush-bashing — the stock in trade of the mainstream media and their allies in the Democratic Party.
So what's the real record? Since Bush's tax cuts took effect in mid-2003:
• Real gross domestic product is up to $1.33 trillion, or 12.6%.
• Existing businesses have hired 5.9 million workers (not counting the millions of jobs entrepreneurs have created).
• Corporate profits have soared 91% to $1.6 trillion.
• Tax receipts have leapt $503 billion, or roughly 1.1 percentage points of GDP, refuting the notion the tax cuts "caused" deficits.
And thanks to rebounding stock prices and huge gains in home values, Americans' total wealth has soared 39% to $54 trillion — the biggest expansion ever.
After such a stellar performance, a breather — what economists call a "midcycle correction" — would be in order. Yet the economy continues to power ahead.
In 2006's final period, GDP growth was 3.5%, and it has averaged 3% since the tax cuts. Real wages rose 1.7% in '06, much faster than the 0.3% average of the Clinton years. In just the last 12 months, unemployment plunged from 5.0% to 4.5%, near postwar lows.
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