Excellent summary of Bush economic policy

Now that the election is over we can all get back to other important things like work, studying the economy (whoever does not keep a sharp eye on the economy is a fool!), etc.

The New Republic magazine has a very useful summary of the Bush economic policy:

There is a simple way to understand economic policy-making under George W. Bush: Whichever pressure group has the strongest and most direct stake in an issue gets its way. Wealthy individuals and business owners have received large tax cuts; farmers have gotten lavish assistance; and insurance and drug companies won enormous subsidies in the Medicare prescription-drug bill. When steel firms lobbied for tariffs, Bush granted them. When automakers and other manufacturers later lobbied Bush to reverse course, complaining that those tariffs had raised the cost of the steel they buy, he began to back down. If there's a single prominent case where Bush offended a powerful corporate interest--except to benefit an even more powerful corporate interest--we have not come across it.

I think that understanding our president's economic policy is very important for planning investments, trying to figure out which markets may be hotter than others, etc. Trying to figure out how the world really works (in addition to being really interesting) helps one's personal finances.