Takin' what they're givin'

Had John Kerry managed to win the election, we'd be talking about this in terms of Bush's economic legacy:

The dollar has continued its record-breaking slide against many of the world's major currencies, with analysts predicting it could fall further.

Comments by the US administration that it favours a strong dollar failed to stem losses as analysts say little is being done to match words with actions.
The dollar fell to a record low of $1.3074 against the euro in London trading before bouncing back to $1.2989.

(snip)

It also slid against the yen and hit a seven-year low against the South Korean won.

"The US dollar will remain under pressure," Merrill Lynch said in a note to investors, citing China's attempts to rein in its booming economy as a main contributing factor.

(snip)

At the heart of the dollar's problems, however, are imbalances in the US economy that analysts are less and less willing to ignore.

The budget deficit and current account deficit have ballooned to record levels.

Then there's this:

Commerce Department reports show that the share of America’s income constituting wages and salaries dropped again during the third quarter of 2004. It has fallen 14 quarters in a row, three and a half years, the longest slide in recent history. Since World War II, wages’ share of the gross domestic product had never dropped more than six quarters in a row, until the 2000s.

Meanwhile, the share of the nation’s income going to corporate profits rose substantially, from 7.8 percent to 10.1 percent during the 13 quarters from early 2001, according to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

And if you think a strong economy is going to power the dollar through it, think again:

The Index of Leading Economic Indicators, a widely watched gauge of future economic activity, fell in October for the fifth straight month, suggesting that the economy may be slowing, a private research group reported today.

The Conference Board said that its main indicator of future economic growth fell 0.3 percent in October, following declines of the same size in September and August. The October decline was steeper than the fall of 0.1 percent that economists had been expecting.

Ken Goldstein, an economist at the New York-based research group, called the latest decline in the index "a clear signal that the economy is losing steam." He also said that "worries about where the economy is headed may cause some strategic plans to be put on hold."

But instead, we've placed Bush back in power. But it looks like four years from now, we'll still be able to talk about how things went wrong:

The latest example comes from a plan for overhauling the tax code floated in today's Washington Post. According to the paper, Bush wants to " shield interest, dividends and capitals gains from taxation," and expand tax breaks for business investment. Of course, we knew all that -- this is a president who, in the words of John Edwards, believes in taxing work, not wealth. The stunner comes from how the administration is thinking of paying for these giveaways. According to a Bush advisor, the Post says, "the administration is considering eliminating the deduction of state and local taxes on federal income tax returns and scrapping the business tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance.

The first part would screw the blue states, especially urbanites who pay high city taxes to support municipal services. The truly evil surprise, though, is the second part. At a time when millions of Americans are without health insurance, the Bush administration is actually talking about eliminate the tax incentive for employers to cover their workers, in order to give even more tax breaks to the rich. Says Atrios, the blogger and economist, "bye bye health insurance for a hell of a lot of people."