DrTorch Wrote:On the contrary, even your nber data show that a recession is defined as 2 consecutive qtrs of a declining economy. Therefore, the recession that was announced in Mar of 2001, had its roots in Sep of 2000.

The economy was growing through March, 2001.

Quote:And when you blast GWB's spending, can you please address the topics like the war, loss of the WTC, and demand for increased homeland security?  Making vague accusations w/o looking more deeply is the sort of sloppy scholarship that I would expect from Owens Comm College...or Ohio State.

<a href='http://www.cbpp.org/4-29-03bud.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.cbpp.org/4-29-03bud.htm</a>

These guys are liberal, but they are citing the Congressional Budget Office:

[i]Yet the cost of war, though by no means trivial, is responsible for only a small share of the deficits we face. The President’s tax cuts are a much more significant cause. Congressional Budget Office data indicate that in 2003 and 2004, the cost of enacted tax cuts is almost three times as great as the cost of war, even when the cost of increases in homeland security expenditures, the rebuilding after September 11, and other costs of the war on terrorism — including the action in Afghanistan — are counted as “war costs,