Reason #19: Voodoo Economics Reborn

From 2001 to 2003, George W. Bush pushed through some of the biggest tax cuts in our nation’s history. His own treasury secretary at the time, Paul O’Neill, tried to convince him the cuts were shortsighted. O’Neill rightly predicted they would kill revenues and send the government deeper into the red over the long term. Bush not only failed to listen to him, he forced him to resign.

The President pledged that the tax cuts would actually lower the national debt by spurring the economy. He promised 800,000 new jobs would be created because of them. Instead, the country lost 2.7 million jobs in the following years. The 9/11 attacks certainly had a hand in slowing the economy. But if anything, those hardships would seem to argue against cutting taxes. Honestly, who in world ever heard of giving tax breaks during a war?

Perhaps the most ridiculous part of Bush’s tax-cut mania is that his own father called such policies “voodoo economics” back when he campaigned against Ronald Reagan in 1980. Bush Sr. knew giving tax breaks without cutting spending would send us into disastrous debt. Sure enough, the deficit grew tremendously during Reagan’s terms. And, lo and behold, the same thing has happened under George W. Bush.

NEXT: Reason #20: Governomics - Spending Like There’s No Tomorrow