MORE ON THE BUSH ECONOMIC MIRACLE

We started the day here at DWT with a look at Paul Krugman's assertion that the Bush Regime is leaving America with a nasty poison pill that will hamper economic and social progress for at least a generation. The top of the Times' Business Page just changed twice in less than 20 minutes and each change sounded pretty dire. At 1:54 pm, ET, Reuters filed a story about Bernanke warning that "rising U.S. government spending on health care risks triggering runaway budget deficits that could put economic stability in danger." Lucky thing Bush was able to get his rubber stamp Republican Congress to prohibit negotiating for bulk discounts from his pharmaceutical campaign contributors-- and to pass the biggest corporate welfare bill in the history of "health" care. The U.S. health care industry is one of the least efficient on a dollar for dollar basis of any developed country. Far too much money goes to for-profit bureaucracy (HMOs and predatory insurance companies) that not only have no relationship to "health," but actually enforce policies that drastically decrease mortality rates and general healthfulness. [Note: well-informed sources claim that McCain is planning to nominate Bill Frist as his Secretary of Health and Human Services.]

With Bush slinking around Europe trying to avoid demonstrations against his existence, Bernanke felt it safe to tell the Senate Finance Committee that "There are limits to how big the deficit and the debt can be... Soon it will begin to have effects on interest rates, it will have effects on economic growth, and on stability, so ... it's not just balancing the federal budget, it's really a much broader question of the stability and strength of our economy over a longer period of time." One has to wonder if he or that guy who had his job before him ever mentioned that to Bush.

Health-care spending is the largest single component of personal consumption and currently exceeds 15 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, Bernanke said. There is little evidence health-care spending will stop rising as a share of GDP, he added.

...Current government spending on the two major health care programs-- Medicare for retirees and Medicaid for low-income people-- takes up 23 percent of federal spending that is not for interest payments, up from 6 percent in 1975, Bernanke said.

..."Higher government spending on health-care spending will, of necessity, require reductions in other government programs, higher taxes, or larger budget deficits," he said.

Even as government spending on health care rises, 47 million Americans, or about 16 percent of the population, are without health insurance, Bernanke said.

"Access to health care is the first major challenge that health-care reform must address," he said, adding that the issue is likely to be a topic of debate in the upcoming presidential election.

Seeing health care as an excuse for corporate welfare, the Bush/McCain approach doomed us to both poor health care and a disastrous economy. A few minutes later the Times changed it's lede to Policymakers Declare Inflation Top Threat. Reuters filed that one from Brussels and South Korea at 2:11 pm, ET. That means higher interest rates and lower living standards. The whole world thanks George W. Bush... and the Supreme Court judges who allowed him to steal the 2000 election.