Suitably Flip

4.4%

Three cheers for Glenn Hubbard, Art Laffer, and George Bush.

From the Department of Labor:

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 180,000 in March, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 4.4 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today.

Ignoring the bubbly unsustainability around the turn of the century, the unemployment rate hasn't ticked lower than its current level since 1970.

What's more, March marked the 43rd month of consecutive job growth (a streak which began in 2003, three months after the tax cuts were signed into law).  If growth continues until at least October, it'll be the longest unbroken period of job creation in recorded history.

Any time you hear a Democratic Presidential candidate or a member of the new legislative majority refer to "rolling back" the Bush tax cuts or "allowing them to expire", it's the little green peg below that they intend to yank out.  Among the predictable effects:  higher unemployment, slower growth, lower incomes, and lower tax revenues.  With so much bad news to go around, it's getting harder to fathom just who they might be pandering to.

Among the Republican field, both Romney and Giuliani feature decidedly supply-side fiscal temperaments.  With specific regard to the investment income tax cuts (for my money, the best economic Presidential litmus test), Romney has to be seen as the optimal candidate, as he has explicitly stated (perhaps more than once; I know I heard him say so at CPAC) that his administration would support not only making the Bush tax cuts permanent, but also extending the wildly successful measure by eliminating federal dividend and capital gains taxes altogether.

John McCain flexed his maverickdom and proved he's slave to neither party doctrine nor common sense by joining Olympia Snowe and Lincoln Chafee as one of only 3 Republican Senators to vote against the tax cuts, eliminating any lingering inclination to consider him a tolerable primary candidate.

Comments

4.4%

Three cheers for Glenn Hubbard, Art Laffer, and George Bush.

From the Department of Labor:

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 180,000 in March, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 4.4 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today.

Ignoring the bubbly unsustainability around the turn of the century, the unemployment rate hasn't ticked lower than its current level since 1970.

What's more, March marked the 43rd month of consecutive job growth (a streak which began in 2003, three months after the tax cuts were signed into law).  If growth continues until at least October, it'll be the longest unbroken period of job creation in recorded history.

Any time you hear a Democratic Presidential candidate or a member of the new legislative majority refer to "rolling back" the Bush tax cuts or "allowing them to expire", it's the little green peg below that they intend to yank out.  Among the predictable effects:  higher unemployment, slower growth, lower incomes, and lower tax revenues.  With so much bad news to go around, it's getting harder to fathom just who they might be pandering to.

Among the Republican field, both Romney and Giuliani feature decidedly supply-side fiscal temperaments.  With specific regard to the investment income tax cuts (for my money, the best economic Presidential litmus test), Romney has to be seen as the optimal candidate, as he has explicitly stated (perhaps more than once; I know I heard him say so at CPAC) that his administration would support not only making the Bush tax cuts permanent, but also extending the wildly successful measure by eliminating federal dividend and capital gains taxes altogether.

John McCain flexed his maverickdom and proved he's slave to neither party doctrine nor common sense by joining Olympia Snowe and Lincoln Chafee as one of only 3 Republican Senators to vote against the tax cuts, eliminating any lingering inclination to consider him a tolerable primary candidate.