The president did not mention that those went toward replacing 2.6 million that were lost during his term.
Democrats contend that such rhetoric makes Bush look out of touch -- the rap that was lethal to his father's reelection effort in 1992. The Democratic National Committee on Monday announced a 20-state tour to economically depressed towns that is designed to highlight Bush's economic record.
The party also announced plans to add a Hoover Meter to its Web site to measure job losses.
Congress approved the heart of Bush's tax program in 2001 with enactment of $1.35 trillion in cuts over 10 years to marginal tax rates, the estate tax and the "marriage penalty," as well as an expansion of the child tax credit. The following year, Congress approved a modest business stimulus package. In 2003, lawmakers voted to make later phases of the 2001 income tax cuts effective immediately, slashed taxes on capital gains and dividends, and increased the child tax credit from $600 to $1,000.
Liberal economists acknowledge that the tax cuts gave the economy a boost, but they say the cuts could have been structured to provide far more stimulus in the short term while adding little to the federal deficit in the long run. For instance, Rubin said, Bush could have pushed a temporary payroll tax cut that would have gone mainly to lower- and middle-income families, along with federal aid to state and city governments for road building and other infrastructure projects. Such a plan would have counteracted the deleterious impact of local government cutbacks and tax increases and ensured that tax cuts would be spent, not saved, Rubin said.
"We could have had temporary stimulus that would have been more effective with respect to jobs, without having this horrendous long-term deficit problem," Rubin told reporters on behalf of the Kerry campaign.
Even some conservatives are grumbling about Bush's economic policies. David Hogberg, a senior research associate with the conservative Capital Research Center, enumerated his gripes on the National Review's Web site Monday: tax cuts that provided too little short-term stimulus, profligate federal spending and the politicization of trade policy.
"If the Bush team loses this election because of economic concerns, they'll have few to blame besides themselves," he steamed.
But most conservatives say that the Bush experience has not discredited the concept of tax cuts. Daniel J. Mitchell, a senior fellow in political economy at the Heritage Foundation, said Bush's cuts "deserve substantial credit for America's economy outperforming our major trading partners in the rest of the world."
"We may not be doing great compared to some theoretical ideal," Mitchell said. "But compared to Western Europe or Japan, we're kicking tail."
