Well there was that and the problem that it was severely backend loaded. Bush actually came out and said he was strongly opposed to capital gains tax cuts, both before 911 and after. All this fit in with his repeated statements at the time that there was nothing wrong with our economy and that nothing needed to be done.
The cut in the capital gains tax is a pro-growth piece and hats off to the House Republicans and Bush for pulling one over on what is clearly a dysfunctional body in the United States Senate.
We can thank Bill Thomson (R-CA) for that, and commentators like Paul Bartlett who had the courage to criticize the Bush economic philosophy, while others were doing nothing more than cheerleading. There's still significant work to be done, but there have been some positive changes in the past few weeks. I'm afraid that when it comes to the economy, president Bush will still do as little as possible -- just enough to get re-elected.