Bush Reaches Economic Dead End

Last Friday, President George Bush called for a $150 billion dollar stimulus package to “jump start” America’s flagging economy. The problem, he assured his viewers, was temporary.

“I'm optimistic about our economic future,” said the President, “because Americans have shown time and again that they are the most industrious, creative, and enterprising people in the world. That is what has made our economy strong. That is what will make it stronger in the challenging times ahead.”

What was the reaction of the U.S. and the rest of the world to those rousing words from the head of the world’s most powerful nation?

Stock markets tanked across the globe. Tuesday’s historic rate cut by the Federal Reserve has temporarily staunched the bloodletting, but no one believes the crisis is over.

Right now, in Europe we are waiting to learn if markets will plunge even further.

This is not to pin the melt-down on Bush alone. (More on that later.) But the fact is that the prestige of an American President, his ability to reassure jittery investors around the world—never mind his own country--has never been lower.

From the start, Bush’s vacuous promises and pigheaded policies—at home and abroad—have turned out to be miserable failures, bringing only disaster in their wake.

Why give any credence to this latest White House initiative?

In just about ever arena, from its attempts to sabotage the U.S. constitution, to intervene across the Middle East and Central Asia, the Bush administration has reached a dead end.