Tax Cut Claims

Contrary to what Team Obama likes to claim, the Bush tax cuts were not responsible for the Great Recession:

While some on the left have speculated about some kind of Rube Goldberg phenomenon — that the tax cuts put so much money in the pockets of the rich that they had nothing to spend it on but risky and exotic financial instruments — we are unaware of any respected academic study making this link. The Bush tax cuts have been amply criticized for costing too much and generating too little economic growth, but that’s entirely different from causing the Great Recession.

Indeed, the official government inquiry, the 631-page final report of the National Commission on the Causes of the Financial and Economic Crisis in the United States, makes no mention of the Bush tax cuts. The report, endorsed by every Democrat on the panel, does cite deregulation, but 30 years of deregulation across multiple administrations — not just deregulation in the Bush years.

But try telling that to the Bush blamers.