American Economy after September 11th :: September 11 Terrorism Essays

American Economy after September 11th "Every president is dealt a hand of cards," said John Shoven, a Stanford University economist and senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution. "Bush inherited a pretty tough hand." When President Bush took the office in the year 2000, things were moving smoothly on the surface. Undercover there was havoc. Tragedy of September 11th shook the world but it shook the US most. Technically speaking, one would say ofcourse it rocked the US, after all it did happen in US. But if truth be told things went downhill instantly. US economy was affected the most. With the twin towers erased from the surface of the country and economic records in the form of ashes- only the wisest of the wise could have pulled the country back from meeting its fate. But with the blessings of the current president, the country met its downfall soon. Facts and figures are clearly given in David Lazarus’s report which appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle last year on the 11th of August. He very plainly states that â€Å"When Bush came to power; the U.S. economy was at the tail end of a dot-com-fueled bubble that couldn't have been sustained under any circumstances. A recession, most economists believe, was all but inevitable.† Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington states â€Å"The president's key economic error was to attempt to stimulate the economy by skewing the benefits of three tax cuts toward wealthy Americans.† According to Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal-leaning Washington think tank, nearly forty percent of the benefits from Bush's tax cuts will go to the richest 1 percent of Americans, those earning on average $1 million a year. By contrast, only about seventeen percent of the benefits will go to the sixty percent of the population earning $45,000 or less. "The tax cuts made no sense as a stimulus measure," said Bob McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice. "If you want to stimulate the economy, you have to give money to people who don't already have it." Bernstein said a crucial problem for many Americans today is that wages are significantly lagging behind inflation. With prices up 3%, the middle class’s income has become far worse than how it was four years back. People are now clearly stating that things have become very tough financially. He has made it note worthy that it would take extraordinary growth -- about 400,000 new jobs a month (august 2004 and November 2004) -- for Bush to avoid the dubious distinction of being the first president since Herbert Hoover to see a net decline in jobs during a term of office.