The good news is, the often-confused president seems aware that the economy is facing serious challenges.
President Bush, in a marked shift from his usual upbeat economic assessments, conceded here on Monday that the nation faces “economic challenges” due to rising oil prices, the home mortgage crisis and a weakening job market.
“We cannot take growth for granted,” Mr. Bush said in a speech to a group of business leaders in which he acknowledged that “recent economic indicators have become increasingly mixed.”
The bad news is what the White House wants to do about it.
When the economy was (sorta, kinda) strong, it showed that tax cuts work, and so we needed to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Now the economy is falling off a cliff — although according to the White House, nobody is predicting a recession (I seem to know an awful lot of nobodies) — and you know what that means: we’d better make the Bush tax cuts permanent.