Phil Gramm said Friday that he is stepping down as co-chairman of Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign amid criticism for saying last week that "we have sort of become a nation of whiners."
  I'm sure everyone in the McCain camp will miss him terribly, but it couldn't of happened to a nicer scab.

  And I've heard McCain introduce Gramm as "his close personal friend and adviser".  They are cut from the same arrogant, elitist cloth.

Here's what the economist Paul Krugman says. He sums it up nicely:

The classic definition of a gaffe is when someone accidentally tells the truth. Phil Gramm committed a slightly different sin: he accidentally said what he, and most of the conservative movement, really believe.

What you have to realize is that the faith of modern conservatives in tax cuts and deregulation is absolute, not susceptible to refutation by evidence. After all, if evidence mattered, they would have been shaken by the boom after Bill Clinton raised taxes; instead, they first denied the boom, then ascribed it to the lagged effects of Reagan’s tax cuts. (I tried to point out that if credit for the booming economy in 1999 went to the 1981 tax cut — that is, if current prosperity is the result of policy actions 18 years ago — then Ronald Reagan should have given credit for “morning in America” to Lyndon Baines Johnson. But somehow that argument didn’t fly.)

So what can conservatives say about our current economic troubles? There have been a few attempts to blame Bill Clinton — and Grover Norquist is saying that it’s all Nancy Pelosi’s fault. But mainly, the attitude Phil Gramm takes — an attitude shared by many on the right — is that we know that tax cuts work, so they must have worked. If Americans are unhappy with the state of the economy, the problem lies with public attitudes, not actual economic performance. Bunch of whiners! The alternative — that supply-side policies really failed — is literally unthinkable.

The tax hikes didn't *cause* the boom, but they didn't have the catastrophic negative effect that conservatives always predict that tax hikes have. The economy was recovering from a recession in 1993, which is the perfect time to raise taxes (kind of like 2009 will be, too). The booming economy and higher tax rates eventually resulted in a surplus. But in 1993 conservatives warned of a terrible recession or even a depression because of the tax hike on the richest 1.5% of Americans. Krugman is just reminding us all just how wrong they were, and used that bit of history as an example of how, um, reality runs contrary to their most precious ideology.

As for the 2001 recession, it was to be expected, as the business cycle of the 1990s had run its course.

Business cycles seem to be deeply embedded in our economics, although no one really understands why. Fiscal (tax and spending) policy only seem to have a minor effect on these cycles. But you'll never see conservatives admitting it.

Minus the boom.

No boom this past 8 years. In 1998, it was still booming all the way into 2000.

Sigh..now were going to "debate" that the Bush years were as good as the Clinton in terms of a boom.

Then I'll show it wasn't.

Then you'll say only because of 9/11 and Clinton got lucky with a boom.

I'll show that the boom was at least helped by raising taxes to pay Reagan's debt, which kept vital credit tied up.

Then we'll go around and around. JPN will have charts. You'll have coy comments. The debate will veer of because in the end you'll lose this one. And we''ll end up talking about whether there WMD.

So boring.

Our memories differ. I remember rather vividly Bush talking about the economy and its need for stimulation in his campaign speeches and him getting flak for 'talking down the economy.'

I suppose he was right as the economy officially dropped into recession in March 2001.

So....which administration BENEFITTED from the "boom?"