Last night, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm laid out the case against Bush’s handling of the economy in a pretty good speech.
“In the end, American families are getting doubly squeezed. While income is down, expenses are up.”
If anything, Granholm was understating the case. As the New York Times reported today, under Bush’s stewardship of the economy, the overall income Americans reported to the government shrank for two consecutive years. It’s the first time this has happened “since the modern tax system was introduced during World War II.”
The total adjusted gross income on tax returns fell 5.1 percent, to just over $6 trillion in 2002, the most recent year for which data is available, from $6.35 trillion in 2000. Because of population growth, average incomes declined even more, by 5.7 percent.
Adjusted for inflation, the income of all Americans fell 9.2 percent from 2000 to 2002, according to the new I.R.S. data.
[…]
Before the recent drop, the last time reported incomes fell for even one year was in 1953. The only other time since World War II that the I.R.S. reported an interruption in income gains was from 1947 to 1949, but that was because of changes in the tax law at the time that affected how income was reported rather than an actual fall.
From 2000 to 2002, individual income taxes fell 18.8 percent, more than three times the decline in adjusted gross incomes, the I.R.S.’s latest statistical reports show.
Probably not the kind of news Bush was looking for right now.