Poverty Is Dead

It's one of the astonishing ironies of our time that for a society that is so obsessed with "economic hypocondria," always ready to plunge into despair at the slightest bit of ostensibly bad news (of which the Enemy Media gins up an avalanche when the Republicans are running the country), it can no longer recognize an avalanche of onrushing, broad-based prosperity when one is happening all around and throughout it. An economic boom that has, in fact, and without anybody really realizing or acknowledging it, rendered poverty (by even the most elastic definitions) in this country extinct.

6.6 million new jobs created between April 2005 and March 2006; the federal budget deficit cut in half three years earlier than President Bush promised in 2004, due entirely to the blizzard of additional revenues thrown off by the roaring Bush economy and fueled by the 2003 tax cuts; the Dow soaring above its previous Clinton-era high, above 12,000, and beyond; and polls still show most Americans disapprove of how Bush is "managing the economy."

Bush has "managed the economy" by getting the frak out of its way. 'Twould sure be nice if the White House would at least try and publicize that more. That's where a Treasury Secretary Forbes would have come in quite handy, rather than the conga line of corporate drones and Wall Street libs that have kept the Bush Boom, as Larry Kudlow has dubbed it, "The Greatest Story Never Told."

But fear not; if the Democrats get back in two weeks from now, they'll "fix" things - but good.