Prosperity results from entrepreneurship & ingenuity Bush thinks the economy has meant more for the Gore and Clinton folks than the Gore and Clinton folks has meant for the economy. Bush thinks most of the economic growth that has taken place is a result of ingenuity and hard work and entrepreneurship. And thats the role of government to encourage that. Gore thinks that the American people deserve credit for the great economy that we have. And its their ingenuity. I agree with that. But they were working pretty hard eight years ago, and they had ingenuity eight years ago. The difference is, weve got a new policy. Look, we have gone from the biggest deficits to the biggest surpluses; weve gone from a triple dip recession during the previous 12 years to a tripling of the stock market. Instead of high unemployment, weve got the lowest African-American and lowest Latino unemployment rates ever in history, and 22 million new jobs. Private sector responsible for economic boom, well Bush flatly rejected the contention from Clinton and Gore that their economic policies, particularly the 1993 deficit-reduction package that passed Congress solely on Democratic votes, had contributed to the nations boom times. I think the economy has grown really in spite of government. This is an incredible period of time when productivity has been enhanced, not because of any great initiative of government, but because of the ability for entrepreneurs to stake a new claim. Make budget biennial; reinstate line-item veto; target pork. If the discord in Washington never seems to end, its because the budget process never seems to end, Bush said. He decried an environment of too much polling and not enough decision-making. Bush proposed revamping the federal budget process to shift from an annual to a biennial exercise and to require the president and Congress to agree on spending targets early in the process, to prevent government shutdowns. Bush also said he woul...
