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| Home Front: Politix |
| Economic revolution in the making |
| 2004-11-06 |
| At 11:02am Eastern Standard Time, November 3, Senator John Kerry called President George W Bush to concede defeat in a hard-fought presidential race that saw the Democratic challenger and the Republican incumbent tied in most polls the day before the election. In the end, though, the outcome wasn't nearly as close as the polls had forecast. Bush's margin of victory in the popular vote was a large 3.5 million and he became the first candidate to win a majority of all votes cast since his father in 1988. As impressive and unpredicted was the length of his coattails: Republicans not only maintained control of the Senate, but increased their seats from 51 to 55; they also added to their majority in the House of Representatives. You have to go back to Franklin D Roosevelt's 1936 re-election for such a feat. A US map published by USAToday.com shows a huge majority (over 90%) of "red" counties (those won by Bush). How will the Bush II administration transform this mandate into convincing and lasting results? First and foremost by pushing ahead with the type of economic policies that - after the miserable Jimmy Carter years - were ushered in by Ronald Reagan and transformed a basket-case economy, then judged soon to be overtaken by Japan, into by far the world's most productive economy that allows less than 5% of the world's population to produce nearly 30% of global output. Reagan, in the midst of deep recession and high inflation inherited from the Carter administration, cut taxes, deregulated businesses and labor markets, and rekindled entrepreneurial initiative and record new business formation. He also ran up massive fiscal deficits; but the fundamental reforms he instituted laid the foundation for the unprecedented prosperity of the 1990s and the building down of deficits that ensued. |
| Posted by:tipper |