Karl Rove Admits Failure of Economic Stimulus After 9/11

Tim Russert invites Karl Rove on Meet The Press and asks him about the uniter not a divider issue and Rove replies:

I remember well after 9/11 sitting with the president and a leader of the Democratic Party talking about the economic stimulus package. The president said, “Look, our economy’s been hit hard on 9/11. We need to do something to jump start our economy. You know, my advisors at the Council of Economic Advisors tell me the number one thing we can do to jump start the economy is A.” And this Democrat leader said, “Well, Mr. President, I can’t get the votes for A, but I can get the votes for B.” And the president said–listened to him and several days later laid out his package and included as one of the principle elements of it B. And that Democrat leader immediately went out and criticized it.

Even though Rove did not tell us what A or B were or who this leader allegedly was, I’m glad he reminded us of what I see as one of Bush’s most incredible failures during the first term. Back in October 2001, there was a consensus among Senate moderates in both the Democratic Party and the GOP that we should tell Wall Street that we were serious about long-term fiscal responsibility also go for more high bang-for-the-buck short-term stimulus. This general type of policy package was the reverse of the long-term fiscal recklessness cum little short-term demand impact policies of Lawrence Lindsey and Bill Thomas over at the House Ways and Means Committee. Many economists praised this general type of policy and hoped the efforts of Charles Rangel could get Bill Thomas to join with the bipartisan spirit among the Senate moderates.

So what did the White House do? They encouraged Thomas to ignore Rangel and they had Trent Lott undermine any real progress in the Senate so they could give Thomas the time to push through low-bang-for-the-buck tax giveaways to their corporate donors. For three years, Mr. Rove and his minions have told us that the Bush-Thomas plan was an effective one even though the evidence said otherwise. So after the 2004 elections, Karl Rove finally admits it was not effective but then he turns around and tries to pin the blame on some unnamed Democrat? Same old Karl Rove – alas!