Clinton-cooked books?

TownHall.com ^ | Thursday, August 8, 2002 | by Robert Novak

[FITZ]

The unemployment statistics are lies when they don't count all the unemployment like the chronic welfare users. Bush should put into place a new and honest way of reporting those numbers, all they need to do is report the percent of families and people with full time jobs & benefits, those working part-time & no benefits, those not working. Also report the reliance on government programs like WIC and Food stamps, CHIPS, when many work but "need" food stamps, the economy isn't that good.

[RedWing9]

Although a political motive for Democratic cooking of the government's books is there, nobody -- including Bush administration officials -- alleges specific wrongdoing. Nor is there any evidence.

I'm all for outing Clinton's malfeasance, but this is a little much, isn't it?

[aruanan]

The Commerce Department's painful report last week that the national economy is worse than anticipated obscured the document's startling revelation. Hidden in the morass of statistics, there is proof that the Clinton administration grossly overestimated the strength of the economy leading up to the 2000 election. Did the federal government join Enron and WorldCom in cooking the books?

Well, Jimmy Carter ran the money printing presses at full speed in an attempt to bolster the economy. Clinton just did the easier thing and lied about the state of the economy, knowing that when the truth came out, it would be during the succeeding administration and could either a. in the case of Gore, continue to be covered up or b. in the case of Bush, be blamed on him as either the effect of Bush policies or partisan politics. Given the kind of people that Clinton stocked the Commerce Department with, that should have been the first place, well, one of the first places, for mass firings of all non-career people, sequestering of records, and initiating of a meticulous post-mortem by people trained in fraud investigation (I'm also thinking of Cuomo's tenure under which millions upon millions of dollars simply disappeared).

[SW6906]

BTTT

[Sloth]

Did the federal government join Enron and WorldCom in cooking the books?

Anyone here ever heard of "social security"?

[aristeides]

If the GNP was exaggerated in 1999 and 2000, can we be sure that it in fact did fall in the first three quarters of 2001?

[FloridaGeezer]

I can see it all now. A new book written anonimously by the press called "Saving Private Billy."

[JPJones]

bump!

[alrea]

The eight horrible years of Clinton teamed up with the liberal media will take thirty years to reverse.

A CNBC anchor was actually asking a Bush advisor about a tax hike today.

[randita]

Notice how very, very quiet the media's been since the Labor Dept. last Wednesday released revised figures on GDP through '01, showing Bush inherented a full-blown recession.

Bush and Cheney knew the truth, no doubt about that. In the spring of 2000, during the campaign, Bush was cautioning the nation that the economy was not all it was cracked up to be. He was accused by Democrats and portrayed in the media as being a negative nay-sayer. But he knew the truth and was going on the record about it.

[AFreeBird]

Rush was telling us "The surplus is on paper only." It's a projected surplus. just like Enron.

Interestingly enough, Rush today was also talking about the Cooked Enron and Worldcom books, and brought up the fact that those companies paid TAXES on all that inflated, non existent revenue.

He wondered if the IRS was going to be refunding monies back to the shareholders? A Snowballs chance in Hell was the considered analysis.

[AFreeBird]

I can see it all now. A new book written anonimously by the press called "Saving Private Billy."

The better title would be: "Saving Billy's Privates"

[PsyOp]

Sorry to say this, but dear ol' Uncle Sam has been cooking the books for a long time. The GAO's formulae for figuring out the budget conforms to WAG.

[aShepard]

"The Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates before-tax profits of domestic nonfinancial corporations quarterly. Revised figures last week showed profits were really lower by 10.7 percent, 12.2 percent, 15.2 percent and 18 percent for the four quarters of 1999. In 2000, this gap became a chasm. The revised quarterly profits for the election year are lower than the announced figures by 23.3 percent, 25.9 percent, 29.9 percent and 28.2 percent.

And, this data is the same data that is used to make projections as to the future surplus to the treasury.

So, all of the talk about the future surplus was total BullS##t, and all the crowing about the tax cut cutting into a non-existent future surplus is all Bulls##t, and the Bush administration macro-economic impact of the ten year tax reduction is all based on Bulls##t.

So, now as we overspend our budget, sometime during the next six years, the republicans will need to rescind a large portion of the tax reduction, and Bush will take the blame.

Folks, we have finally found the clinton legacy!