Bush, Dems Have Different Economic Views

President Bush delivers a speech about the economy from Federal Hall in in New York, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2007. Bush took aim at lavish salaries and bonuses for corporate executives: issuing a sharp warning for corporate boards to "step up to their responsibilities" and tie compensation packages to performance. (AP Photo/Ron Antonelli, Pool) (Ron Antonelli - AP)

WASHINGTON -- The booming economy that President Bush paints is a far cry from the worrisome one increasingly portrayed by Democratic presidential candidates and party leaders. To them, there are worker insecurities, stagnant wage growth and soaring costs for health care and college.

The vision of rival economies already is a main issue for the 2008 presidential and congressional races. Economists say both sides are right _ and wrong. It just depends on what numbers you summon.

Bush is trying to nudge the national focus away from Iraq and is offering a rosy picture of the economy ahead of his presentation Monday of a financial blueprint he says will lead to a balanced budget by 2012.

Congressional Democrats have embraced the same timetable. The course the rival camps chart to get there is bound to be the domestic-policy battle royal of the current congressional session.

"Workers are making more money. Their paychecks are going further. Consumers are confident. Investors are optimistic," Bush said in a speech Wednesday at Federal Hall on Wall Street. It was his second on the economy in as many days.

"I'm not surprised that some of the good economic news is overshadowed by the difficult news out of Iraq," Bush told Fox News later Wednesday.

The president credits his first-term tax cuts for much of the upbeat news, ignoring the $10 billion-a-month drain on the government's balance sheets from the unpopular war in Iraq and military actions in Afghanistan and elsewhere to fight terrorism.

Bolstering Bush's outlook was a new Commerce Department report showing that the economy gained speed in the final three months of 2006. The economy grew at an annual rate of 3.5 percent, much faster than the 2 percent increase of the previous three months.

Stocks soared after that report and after the Federal Reserve's decision to leave interest rates steady.

But hold on.

Here comes this from Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, reprising the "two Americas" rich-poor divide he depicted in 2004 as a presidential and vice presidential candidate: "We cannot stand by and watch 37 million people wake up and not know how to feed and clothe their children."

Other Democratic presidential hopefuls are echoing the theme.