Bad Economic Predictions from a Group That Consistently Makes Bad Economic Predictions

Check out the predictions that Heritage Foundation made regarding the salubrious effects that GW Bush’s tax policy would have on the US economy.

Do you all remember how swell the economy was during GW Bush’s administration? Here are some of the predictions Heritage Foundation made using its fuzzy math and outlandish Dynamic Analysis (i.e. cherry picking data and tweaking the numbers until they come out the way Heritage wants them to).

• Significantly increase economic growth. By the end of FY 2011, GDP (adjusted for inflation) would be $246 billion higher than the
  CBO baseline forecast. The rate of economic growth would increase by an average of 0.2 percentage point per year (from 3.1 percent to 3.3 percent) from FY 2002 to FY 2011 (see Appendix B).
• Create more job opportunities. As Chart 1 shows, over 1.6 million more Americans would be working at the end of FY 2011, compared
  with the CBO baseline forecast. Moreover, the unemployment rate would average just 4.7 percent instead of 4.9 percent from FY 2002 to FY 2011.
• Substantially increase family income. By the end of FY 2011, disposable personal income for an average family of four (adjusted for inflation) would increase by $4,544 (see Chart 2).²¹ In response to this increase in family budgets, consumer spending would rise by $255 billion, or $3,390 for each family of four.

The points above come directly from the Heritage Website. Although they may have been wrong on every point, I have to give them credit for not following the typical conservative ploy of scrubbing their website whenever reality embarasses them by ruining their prognostication.

Remember that this is the same site that gave Paul Ryan his fantasy based analysis of his “very serious” budget proposal.

Do yourself a favor, next time someone tries to tell you that the GOP, or conservatives, are better on the economy than Democrats or liberals, just point and laugh. You could try arguing with them, but anyone drinking that Kool-Aid is likely a FOX “News” junkie and wouldn’t know reality if it jumped up and bit them on the ear.