Bush to Announce Economic Plan
SHIELDS: Welcome back. President Bush will go to the country Tuesday with his economic growth plan, including a reduction in taxation on dividend income.</s>BUSH: I am concerned about those who are looking for work and can't find work. And so next week when I talk about an economic stimulus package, I will talk about how to create jobs.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), MINORITY LEADER: The speculation that I see doesn't indicate that there's much stimulus in the package. I think what you see is the administration perhaps using the term "stimulus" as a Trojan horse to wheel in some favorite tax breaks for the high end that they're so fond of.</s>BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, DEMOCRATIC RADIO RESPONSE) SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D-SD), MINORITY LEADER: The tax break the president is said to be proposing is the wrong idea at the wrong time to help the wrong people.</s>SHIELDS: Bob Novak, you know those wrong people. Can President Bush seriously describe a cut in taxes and dividends as a jobs creation program?</s>NOVAK: No. And he shouldn't. It isn't a jobs creation program. He makes a mistake when he calls it a stimulus package. His own economic advisers will tell him you shouldn't use that. It's a Keynesian term. What this -- what this package should be is something to promote economic growth in the long term, promote investment. But the problem is that he is very sensitive, or at least his political people seem -- I guess he is sensitive, to this class struggle demagoguery by Nancy Pelosi and Tom Daschle, giving tax cuts to the wrong people. They're already negotiating with themselves. They've cut down the size of the dividend tax cut. They're not going to speed up the tax cuts over a period</s>SHIELDS: Al Hunt, is Bob Novak right?</s>HUNT: I wish the White House had Bob Novak's integrity, and I really mean that. I mean, Bob, you are dead wrong, but you have complete integrity on this. You really believe, I think honestly, that investment bankers and CEOs are more productive people than school teachers or cops. And that's a point of view, and you express it quite eloquently, if wrongly. The White House is looking for these fig leaves to cover up what I think is a dangerous giveaway of American tax dollars. It's bad policy for several reasons, Bob. Number one, it is not stimulus. Bob is right on that. Congressional Research Service said this is one of the least effective ways to short-term stimulate the economy if that's what you want to do. Number two, the idea of double taxation's a misnomer. I mean, a lot of these, there's no taxes paid in the first place. You know, the National Bureau of Economic Research says that corporations report $80 billion more to shareholders in profits than they do to the IRS. That's $80 billion that's escaping. If they want to have single taxation, fine, let's do away with these shelters. And thirdly, Mark, what really is, I think, the most galling is, we are about to go to war, we're talking about a long-term war against terrorism that's going to be expensive. And what is this president's answer when it comes to sacrifice? Big tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Outrageous.</s>SHIELDS: Margaret Carlson in California, what about this? Is it job creation?</s>CARLSON: No, Bob is right in that it's not a stimulus package. But the reason Bob's one of the wrong people is that whether you tax his dividends or not, he's not going to go buy a refrigerator. He's not going to stimulate the economy in any way. It just goes into the pocket of those people who don't really need to spend the money they get, as opposed to, say, a cut in payroll taxes, where those people would actually spend the money and stimulate the economy. Even economists friendly to Bush and to tax cuts say this is not going to do anything in the short run, and Bob says maybe in the long run it will do something...</s>NOVAK: I didn't say maybe.</s>CARLSON: ...</s>NOVAK: I didn't say maybe.</s>CARLSON: ... as -- as Keynes said, We're all dead in the long run.</s>NOVAK: Don't mis -- don't misquote me.</s>HUNT: We're all dead in the long run.</s>CARLSON: Unemployment is at 6 percent. The states are in deficit, and God knows some of them may go bankrupt. That's why Bush is putting some of -- some help to the unemployed and to the states to try to make his package look like it's going to help normal people. But it's not. And this bugaboo about dividends is something that's been in his craw for a long time. And now he's going to try to get that nontaxation of dividends and with the fig leaf of, it's a stimulus package.</s>SHIELDS: Lindsey Graham, just a statistic that jumped out this week. Under eight years of Bill Clinton, 230,000 jobs a month were created on the average, 230,000 new jobs a month. Under George Bush, 69,000 jobs a month have been lost since he's been in the White House, on the average. I mean, is there -- this isn't job creation. Something seriously ought to be done about jobs, because that's the measure. It isn't dividends, it isn't whether the stock market is up, it's whether people have jobs, isn't it?</s>GRAHAM: Let me give you another number, if you want to blame somebody. When the Democrats...</s>SHIELDS: Not blaming, just</s>GRAHAM: Well, when the Democrats took over the Senate, the stock market was at 10,000, unemployment was about a third less than it is now. You can look at the time they took over and stopped a lot of the things this president tried to do. But we're all in it together. Now, I bought a refrigerator about two months ago.</s>SHIELDS: It's about time, Lindsey.</s>GRAHAM: Well, let me tell you, now, I don't...</s>GRAHAM: No, Margaret, I don't know if I'm a regular guy or a wrong person. I don't know what adjective is going to come out next from the Democratic Party to describe Americans. But one thing that this show has in common, that we all probably talking here tonight on stock, it will help the economy long term if you stop taxing dividends. It will allow corporations to raise more money. Now they get a benefit for having debt, because they can write it off. It's a good move. It's a good move to pay unemployment dividends retroactively. I hope he'll do that. It's a good move to speed up the tax cuts so there'll be more money for consumers. So I like the way he's going, and I think it will help over time.</s>NOVAK: You know, what Margaret was saying was very painful to me. It was horribly painful. But what Tom Daschle and Nancy Pelosi...</s>NOVAK: ... and Al Hunt and Margaret Carlson, what is really sad is, they haven't learned anything from what's gone on in this country for the last 70 years. Roosevelt never understood it one bit. He kept throwing out money to the people, throwing out money for public works, and it never works. The only way you can get an economy really humming is to have investment. This tax system impedes this...</s>GRAHAM: Are you saying...</s>NOVAK: ... economy.</s>GRAHAM: ... Nancy Pelosi's...</s>CARLSON: Mark?</s>GRAHAM: ... not a job creator, is that what you're trying to say?</s>NOVAK: Well, they don't understand, they think you can take an airplane filled with money, throw it out, and that's going to be...</s>HUNT: Mark?</s>NOVAK: ... and that's going to really help.</s>HUNT: Can I just say this? We had...</s>CARLSON: Hey, Mark...</s>HUNT: ... this tax system during the 1990s, and we had the greatest economic growth of your...</s>HUNT: ... lifetime, Bob.</s>NOVAK: ... garbage.</s>SHIELDS: Bob, time is out, but I have to say three words to you, GI Bill. Nothing changed America more dramatically...</s>NOVAK: You just...</s>SHIELDS: ...</s>NOVAK: ... let me tell you, anything...</s>NOVAK: ... you like, anything...</s>SHIELDS: ...</s>NOVAK: ... anything</s>SHIELDS: ...</s>NOVAK: Anything that's government spending, taking money from the productive people...</s>SHIELDS: I am, I'm...</s>NOVAK: ... giving it to the unproductive people...</s>SHIELDS: ... I'm grateful, I'm grateful as a Marine Corps and FBI and a...</s>HUNT: Nice try.</s>SHIELDS: ... and a Centers for Disease Control, and I hope you are too. Next on CAPITAL GANG, president candidate -- presidential candidate John Edwards.