Jeb Bush Is Right: Stop Blaming W

Jeb Bush Is Right: Stop Blaming W by MSW.  MGB: The real culprits are Newt Gingrich, Larry Summers and Bill Clinton for lowering the capital gains tax rate in 1997, which led to an investment boom and crash, as well as the inflation of revenue collections that allowed George W. Bush to pursue an ill advised tax cut doubling down on the Clinton Era cuts in 2001 and 2003.  Obama and Biden bear some of the blame as well for letting those cuts stay around in 2010 (again, Larry Summers likely had something to do with this) rather than letting them expire to late Clinton levels).

Why are the tax cuts on dividends and capital gains bad?  Because they reward corporate  "Job Creators" with 85 cents on the dollar for cutting labor costs (controlling wages, automating plants, sending jobs to China) and earning themselves both bonuses and favorable treatment on carried interest and dividend/stock compensation.  It is amazing the degree to which CEOs put their personal finances ahead of the long term well being of both the workers and the economy - and even their own shareholders.  Because every worker is a customer, George W. Bush's Fed Chairman was forced into an accommodating monetary policy where people who did not share the productivity they generated through wages had to borrow more money to keep spending (with leveraged deals again benefiting those "job creators" with more money than before due to low tax rates).  The reason the economy has not come back - aside from GOP resistance to increase public works and state level public service spending - is that tax rates are still so low that it does not pay the rich to increase labor costs.

While some of the blame does indeed go to Clinton, Summers, Obama and Biden - the vast majority was earned by W - and it must be noted that Romney will continue to double down on these errors.