WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- While one quarter does not a boom make, the news that the U.S. economy grew at a 7.2-percent annual rate in the third quarter has Republicans dancing in the streets, claiming the Bush administration's tax cuts deserve a lot of credit for spurring the surge.
"We said all along that if we passed a tax cut that would put more money in consumer's pockets," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said Thursday. "If we put more confidence back in the markets and gave investors more incentives to invest, we would have stronger economic growth," he said, adding, "We were right."
"The stock market is back. Business orders are up. The economy added 57,000 new jobs last month. And now we have even more proof that the economy is well on the road to recovery. By fighting to keep these pro-growth policies in place, and by taking other steps, such as completing work on the president's energy bill, we will put America back to work, " Hastert said.
In the third quarter of 2003 consumer spending rose at an annual rate of 6.6 percent while interest rates remained low. In the business sector, the nation's payrolls increased by 57,000 new hires in September while business spending on equipment and software grew by 15.4 percent.
The 7.2-percent annual growth in third-quarter 2003 is the single best showing since first-quarter 1984, astounding experts who were quick to define the potential political benefit for the president and the Republicans.
"If this keeps up, and it almost certainly will, then Bush should coast to re-election next year, " David Keating, executive director of the pro-market Club for Growth said. "If the Democrats nominate a pro-tax hiking candidate in 2004, Bush and the Republicans could end up with huge majorities in both the House and Senate."
--
If, as is rumored to be the case, Rep. William J. "Billy" Tauzin, R-La., steps down from Congress before the next election to become the top lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America -- and likely successor to MPAA head Jack Valenti -- it seems increasingly likely that Texas Republican Joe Barton will be the man to whom the Energy and Commerce Committee gavel is passed.
--
Getting wide distribution among Washington's "punditocracy" is the October issue of Vanity Fair, the magazine for everyone who wants to be anyone. Of particular interest to the pundit class is VF's annual ranking of the information age establishment which, this year, is led by News Corp's Rupert Murdoch.
Though his Fox News Channel is the one that every self-respecting liberal loves to hate, the American people love it. Under the leadership of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Roger Ailes, who also makes the list at No. 34, Fox News Channel is continually trouncing its cable news competitors, which may be one reason why News Corp's stock price, "long in the doldrums," the mag says, "has grown by 50 percent since last year."
Also generating chuckles is the picture that leads the list, showing Murdoch and Ailes as, respectively, President Merkin Muffley and Gen "Buck" Turgidson from the late Stanley Kubrick's classic "Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."
Also on the list: Viacom's Sumner Redstone at No. 2; Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at No. 3; Apple Computer's Steve Jobs at No. 4; and, rounding out the top five, Brian Roberts, president and CEO of Comcast Corporation.
--
The Democrats are busy rolling out the red carpet for Ed Schultz, the Fargo, N.D., talk radio host anchoring the latest effort to establish a certifiably liberal presence on the airwaves beyond National Public Radio.
The new "voice of democracy radio," Schultz is getting high-powered backing. Democrats in Washington are raising money for the show while others have pledged close to $2 million over the next two years to get the effort off the ground.
"The Democrats are getting the tar beat out of them constantly by Limbaugh and Hannity, and they feel they don't have a platform," Schultz has said on several occasions. "The other side of the story is not being told."
It will be interesting to see if his backing holds up after Democrats, particular the pro-gun control and pro-animal rights crowd, learn that Schultz, a self-described big hunter, years ago shot and killed his own dog while on a hunting trip. Or how the American-Indian tribes who fill party coffers with cash from their casinos and other minority groups will react when they realize Schultz is the statewide radio play-by-play man for the "Fighting Sioux," the politically incorrect name of the University of North Dakota football team.
--
The Florida chapter of the Alliance for Retired Americans has asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Fla., charging that members of her staff obstructed its attempt to pass out "non-partisan" information about Harris' voting record at a recent town meeting. They were stopped from doing so when the handouts were "physically confiscated."
Before anyone gets too far ahead on this however, it is important to note that things may not be as "non-partisan" as they are being portrayed.
The alliance's organizational forerunner is the National Council of Senior Citizens, a group formed in 1960 by the Democratic National Committee and organized labor as Seniors for Kennedy-Johnson. In 1961, after Kennedy's narrow victory, the group changed its name to the NCSC.
And that's not all. Alliance President George Kourpias was also president of the now-defunct NCSC and, before that, was president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, traditionally a strong supporter of the Democratic Party, making the "non-partisan" claim somewhat suspect.
--
(That's Politics! is a regular look at the inner workings of the American political process by UPI's Peter Roff, a 20-year veteran of the Washington scene.)
