For the past several years the Bush Administration has been turd polishing. That is to say, they have been telling us how great everything is even though the economy has been a giant turd ever since BushCo took office. The BushCo m.o. has been to get on the TV and tell everyone how great everything is contrary to any and all economic indicators; contrary to the fecal smell wafting from the White House.

As oil companies turned in record profits that was used as evidence of how great the economy was. As Halliburton’s stock quadrupled, that was used as evidence of how great the economy was. As Defense Sector profits increased, that was used as evidence of how great the economy was. As Bush created over 1 million new government jobs that was used as an example of how robust employment was and by proxy how great the economy was.

But reality has been far different. Reality has been that real wages have been stagnant, jobs keep moving overseas, and the middle class keeps getting squeezed. Republicans ignored all this however. They pushed this notion that it was the Bush Tax Cuts that made the economy so great.

What made the economy appear to be strong was a housing market that was spurned on by record low interest rates. The rate cuts were brought on by Greenspan as a way to stimulate the economy after 9/11. All it did was mask the real problems.

Now the market is tanking and finally some are suggesting we are in a recession and that inflation is rampant. I have news for the expert pinheads: We’ve been in a recession and inflation has been rampant for years. Just look at fuel and food prices. One of the problems with the Bush Administration is that rather than put effort into fixing the economy they instead poured all their effort into manipulating the statistics to make it seem the economy was going gangbusters. They continue to constantly under report unemployment, inflation, and over report economic growth. They can do this easily by excluding such things as fuel and food prices and including government jobs in the employment statistics.

It’s easy for a company to be profitable if they are receiving billions of dollars in cost plus no bid contracts from the Bush Administration. These are borrowed tax dollars being handed out to crony corporations. It means nothing with respect to the economy. Republicans like to think that if corporations are doing well then the economy is doing well. But that’s not the case, especially when those corporations are subsisting off tax payer dollars.

The economy is doing well when people are doing well. People are doing well when they are making more money than they made the previous year, have less credit card debt, and money in their savings account. That hasn’t been the case for years. Real wages have been stagnant ever since Bush took office.

The other issue is that people point to the market as an indicator of how good or bad the economy is. As the market goes up the expert pinheads say ‘look how great the economy is! The market is up up up!’ Reality is the market is a lagging indicator. The market starts tanking long after the economy has gone south and goes up long after things have been good. It starts tanking after corporations start reporting quarterly losses and job cuts. Well guess what, those losses and job cuts happened months ago.

Even for those who like to point to the market as a barometer of how well or bad things are, if we were to use the market as a gauge, then under the Bush Administration the stock market has been stagnant at best. Bush came into office with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) at about 10,500. Today the Dow is at 12,000. Adjusting for inflation one would quickly see that Bush has presided over a loss market value. Using the DJIA as a barometer in many ways is a joke. They constantly shuffle out stocks that are performing poorly and replace them with stocks that are performing like gangbusters. In this way they can mask how bad things really are.

The whole Bush Administration has been an experiment in psychology; if they tell us everything is fine, will it make everything ok? That’s been the long standing question and we’re finally getting our answer.

The whole paradigm of cutting taxes on the wealthy to stimulate the economy has been a sham. The only reason why they were able to keep up appearances that the economy was doing well was because of low interest rates brought on by 9/11 and by waging war. The Bush Administration and the Republican dominated Congress up to 2006 added $5 Trillion do the debt. That money in large part went to defense spending. Turmoil in the Middle East caused speculators to drive up the price of oil. Those two things allowed the Bush Administration to say ‘look how great things are! Halliburton’s stock has quadrupled, Exxon turned in record breaking profits, Boeing’s stock is up, and net jobs have been created!’

It was all a ruse. They took our borrowed tax dollars and handed it out to crony corporations. Jobs were created because of the creation of the behemoth Department of Homeland Security. Rather than deal with reality the Bush Administration just keeps polishing the turd hoping we’ll buy it. Besides, corporations don’t really ever want to raise wages nor do they really want to create jobs in the U.S. In that sense, under corporate control, the economy would never get better.

So what’s Bush’s new great idea to help fix the economy? More tax cuts for the wealthy.

Brilliant.

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result each time.