It Looks Like The Party Is Over On Americans' Spending Spree
April 01, 2001|By Dan Gibbard. Dan Gibbard is the Tribune's
national/foreign copy desk chief.  President Bush must feel
sometimes like the guest of honor who gets stuck in traffic,
arrives to the party late and finds out the hosts have run out
of food and drink.  The party is over. With bellies full and
heads light, everyone has gone home.  In our nation's case, it
is the urge to spend that has seemingly been satiated. Or, more
likely, the United States has a collective case of indigestion
after looking at the bills run up in the past eight years of
gorging on consumer goods and a perhaps-unhealthy diet of
luxuries.  Bush, meanwhile, knows he had better come up with a
remedy to get people spending again, and fast. Otherwise, the
Democrats will be the ones throwing the next big bash, in 2004.
Tax and spend? Dead. In its place we have Spend and Spend, a
handful of business- and consumer-oriented policies designed to
get American consumers back to, w