SF Chron ^ | 8-11-2004 | David Lazarus
Look at how the Media was Blasting GWB just 4 years into his term. Take a gander at the stats....I WISH we could a deficit that low....
Sometimes I sympathize with President Bush. Really.
Last week's dismal report on job creation -- a scant 32,000 jobs created versus 240,000 expected -- left our re-election-seeking president little wiggle room on the economic front.
"Economic growth is strong and getting stronger," Bush told a gathering of minority journalists after the jobs number was released.
It can't be easy to have to defend your economic policies when all evidence suggests that average Americans are worse off today than they were four years ago.
Here are just a few of the numbers:
-- When Bush took office on Jan. 20, 2001, the Dow Jones industrial average was at 10,587.59. It closed Tuesday at 9,944.67.
-- When Bush took office, the unemployment rate was 4.2 percent. It's now 5.5 percent, according to the Labor Department.
-- When Bush took office, U.S. consumer debt totaled almost $1.7 trillion. It's now $2.038 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve.
-- When Bush took office, bankruptcy filings during the previous year totaled almost 1.3 million, down 5 percent from a year before. By Dec. 31, 2003, bankruptcies had hit a record of nearly 1.7 million, up 5.2 percent from 2002, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.
-- When Bush took office, the federal budget had been balanced for three straight years and was, in the 2000 fiscal year, running a surplus of $236 billion -- the largest in U.S. history.
The White House today is projecting a record budget deficit this year of $445 billion.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
