America For Purchase

Think George W Bush and the Republican controlled Congress had nothing to do with a large part of the current financial situation in this country? Think again.  Have you lost your business? Have you lost your home? Did your business start turning bad because you could not compete with dirt low rates from “competitors”? Take your bills and go to Crawford, Texas or Dallas, Texas and demand this Republican donkey to pay your bills:When President Bush was in office, the United States’ trade deficit, the gap between what the United States exports and imports, reached historic levels. Large sustained trade deficits mean that the United States is consuming much more than it is producing. Just like a household that spends more than it earns, this national gap must be financed by borrowing. Chronic trade deficits over the past decade have led to a rising foreign debt, the displacement of millions of jobs from the manufacturing sector, and downward pressure on the wages of non-college educated workers.

• Since President Bush took office, the U.S. trade deficit nearly doubled from $379 billion (2000) to $700 billion (2007).

• The trade deficit with China alone tripled from $83 billion in 2000 to $256 billion in 2007.

• As a share of the economy, the overall trade deficit rose from 3.9% of GDP in 2000 to a peak of 5.7% in 2006, before moderating slightly to 5.1% of GDP in 2007.

• In President Bush’s first term, the United States lost 1.9 million jobs to trade deficits.

• In 2007, the bilateral trade deficit with China represented 1.85% of the entire economy.5 Growth in this deficit since 2001 has displaced 2.3 million net jobs.

• Between 2000 and June 2008, the United States lost 3.4 million manufacturing jobs.7 Recent estimates have predicted that next year China will overtake the United States as the world’s largest producer of manufactured goods.8

Cross posted from Antibes

Filed under: George W Bush