archived: 6 - 12 May, 2007         Back                 Next

UPDATED:  MAY 9, 2007

                        TALKING POINTS 

The Democratic Policy Committee has published these bullet facts about the Republican administration.  Each is an example of failed Republican leadership and they make excellent talking points (edited): 

Health care premiums have increased by over 80 percent.  The cost of family health insurance has skyrocketed 80.8 percent since 2000.  Premiums are rising twice as fast as wages and inflation.  The typical family health insurance premium is now $11,480 a year compared with $6,348 in 2000. The number of uninsured Americans has increased every year since President Bush took office, from 39.8 million in 2000 to a record high of 46.6 million in 2005.

 

Gas prices have climbed over $3 a gallon.  Prices at the gas pump have jumped 107 percent from $1.47 per gallon the week President Bush took office in January 2001 to $ 3.05 in the latest week of energy price data. 

 

College education costs have risen by 44 percent.  Tuition, fees, room, and board charges at four-year public colleges grew more rapidly between 2000-2001 and 2005-2006, after adjusting for inflation, than during any other five-year period since 1975.  Total costs jumped from $8,439 in 2000-2001 to $12,127 in 2005-2006 – an increase of $3,688, or 44 percent. 

 

Housing affordability has reached a 15-year low.  In 2006, housing affordability reached its lowest level since 1991 

 

While families work harder, their wages continue to decline.  Middle-class families are working harder and earning less today than they were at the start of the Bush Administration.  According to the Wall Street Journal, “Since the end of the recession of 2001, a lot of the growth in GDP per person – that is, productivity – has gone to profits, not wages.”  Median household income, adjusted for inflation, has declined $1,273 from $47,599 in 2000 to $46,326 in 2005.

  

Earnings for workers with college degrees declining.  The LA Times has reported that: “Wage stagnation, long the bane of blue-collar workers, is now hitting people with bachelor’s degrees for the first time in 30 years.  Earnings for workers with four-year degrees fell 5.2 percent from 2000 to 2004 when adjusted for inflation, according to White House economists…Not since the 1970s have workers with bachelor’s degrees seen a prolonged slump in earnings during a time of economic growth…trends for people with master’s and other advanced degrees…have found that their inflation-adjusted wages were essentially flat between 2000 and 2004.”

 

Worst job creation record since Hoover Administration.  A growing economy should be good news for those seeking jobs.  But over the course of President Bush’s term in office, his Administration has the worst overall job creation record since Herbert Hoover more than 70 years ago.

 

Unemployment has increased 7.1 percent and long-term joblessness has nearly doubled.  In part because of this failure to create a sufficient number of jobs, the national unemployment rate stands at 4.5 percent, which is 7.1 percent higher than the 4.2 percent rate when President Bush took office.  Unfortunately, once unemployed, America’s workers also are staying unemployed longer.  In 2006, over one in six of the unemployed had been out of work for more than 26 weeks.  The number of long-term unemployed has increased by 61 percent since President Bush took office.

 

Bush’s deficit-financed tax cuts have widened the income gap between millionaires and middle-class workers.  The Wall Street Journal, however, has attributed the widening income gap to President Bush’s tax policies:  “[I]t appears that the highest-salaried workers – executives, managers and professionals – are widening their lead on the typical worker…The Bush tax cuts appear to have widened the income gap, according to many analyses.”

 

More American families and children face severe financial problems.  The average annual increase in the poverty rate during President Bush’s first term is second only to that during George H.W. Bush’s administration and contrasts sharply with the declines in the Clinton and Kennedy-Johnson Administrations.   The poverty rate has increased 12 percent to 12.6 percent since 2000.v Nearly thirty-seven million Americans were living in poverty in 2005, an increase of 5.4 million over the 2000 level, the year before President Bush took office.   

 

Bush Republicans turned record budget surpluses into record deficits.  President Bush inherited a unified budget surplus of $236 billion from President Clinton, the largest surplus in American history.  Budget surpluses were expected to continue for another ten years when President Bush took office in January 2001.  By 2002, however, the unified federal budget had returned to a deficit of $158 billion and has reached historic highs.  Last year, the budget deficit was $248 billion, or 1.9 percent of GDP.

 

Bush Republicans, addicted to borrowing, increased the national debt by $3 trillion.  President Bush is the most fiscally irresponsible American president, having presided over the largest explosion of debt in our nation’s history.  Every year since taking office, President Bush asked Congress to increase the statutory debt limit, resulting in a $3 trillion, or 51 percent, increase.  At the end of 2006, the federal debt totaled $8.68 trillion.  By 2012, the President’s budget would increase the public debt to 12.2 trillion.

 

Enormous trade deficit is undermining U.S. competitiveness.   In 2006, the U.S. trade deficit was at an alarming record high of $765,262 billion – twice the size of the trade deficit in 2001.   Even more troubling, our trade in Advanced Technology Products, a strong indicator of U.S. competitiveness, which was in surplus as recently as 2001, experienced a deficit of more than $38 billion in 2006.

 

Average student loan debt soared to more than $19,000.  Interest rates for Stafford student loans have risen substantially over the past two years, from 3.4 percent to 7.14 percent for outstanding loans and 6.8 percent on new loans.  As a result, loan payments will be considerably higher for students taking out new loans and for those who did not consolidate loans in recent years.  Without adequate federal grants funding, students and their parents must rely more on student loans to finance their college educations.  More than 60 percent of undergraduates at four-year colleges have to take out loans, and the average amount of federal student loan debt upon graduation has increased from $7,650 in the 1992-1993 to $17,400 in 2003-2004.  When private loans are factored in as well, average student loan debt in 2003-2004 was more than $19,000.

 

Erosion of employer-provided pensions threatens Americans’ retirement security.  Workers should be able to count on the retirement promises made by their employers.  Increasingly, that is not the case.  An analysis by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), the federal entity created by Congress to protect employee pensions, found that nearly 10 percent of pension plans halted benefit accruals in 2003 alone, the latest year for which complete data is available.  According to PBGC Executive Director Bradley Belt, anecdotal evidence suggests that this number has been even higher since then.  Unfortunately, Bush Administration proposals to expand tax-favored savings accounts that primarily benefit the wealthy risk further pension plan erosion. 

Use these talking points with your friends and associates.  Work in one or two a day until you exhaust the list.  Then, repeat the exercise.

                        FOLLOW THE BOUNCING POLLS 

Two new polls; USA Today/Gallup and CNN/Opinion Research, since the Newsweek polls pegging Bush at 28%.  Both new polls find Bush’s approval rating in the mid-30% range.  These polls strongly suggest that the Newsweek poll was an “outlier.”   

TPJ’s monthly average of Bush’s approval rating is 33.60%, which is impacted negatively by the Newsweek poll.  Excluding Newsweek, Bush’s approval rating would be 35%, disapproval would be 61% and the spread -26.00 percent.  In our opinion, these ratings are a truer picture of Bush’s standing with the public.   

But in May, polls have found bush’s approval rating ranging from 28% to 38%.  We just have to wait for another four to five polls.  Until then, Democrats can just follow the bouncing polls.   

From every perspective, including or excluding Newsweek’s “outlier,” Bush’s approval rating is horrid: 

For those who question how Bush has held in the mid-30% range, the answer lies in the Republican base: 

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