That is true, the market was not unfettered during the Bush administration.
This is a good sign, we might be able to have an honest conversation.
I should have said that deregulation, the Bush wars, and the Bush tax cuts got us to this point.
Since you've chosen to move the goalpost from unregulated to deregulated, I'll have to come back to that and move on to your statement about the Bush Tax Cuts.
Hopefully you're still willing to discuss reality. During a recession, tax revenue falls as a result of negative, stagnant, or slow economic growth.
Early 2000's Recession
From 2000 to 2001, the Federal Reserve in a move to quell the stock market, made successive interest rate increases, credited in part for "plunging the country into a recession." Using the stock market as an unofficial benchmark, a recession would have begun in March 2000 when the NASDAQ crashed following the collapse of the Dot-com bubble.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was relatively unscathed by the NASDAQ's crash until the September 11, 2001 attacks, after which the DJIA suffered its worst one-day point loss and biggest one-week losses in history up to that point. The market rebounded, only to crash once more in the final two quarters of 2002.
In the final three quarters of 2003, the market finally rebounded permanently, agreeing with the unemployment statistics that a recession defined in this way would have lasted from 2001 through 2003.
The first of the Bush Tax Cuts were passed in 2001, the second in 2003. Lets take a look at tax revenue during this period.
As you can see, revenues fell during the recession but recovered in 2004 and continued to climb until peaking in 2007.
So, are you arguing that the Bush Tax Cuts, and not the recession, caused the drop in revenue between FY'01-FY'03? If so, you need to explain why the revenue climbed above it's previous highs after passage of the FY'03 tax cut.
If, indeed, tax cuts cause a loss in revenue, then FY'04 should have seen even lower tax receipts than FY'03, yet revenue went up and continued to climb until FY'07 where revenue reached it's highest point in nearly a decade.
This brings me to another point that is based entirely on reality... If spending is greater than revenue, a deficit is created.
Now if you wish to claim that Bush didn't overspend, that he simply under-taxed, then I hope you have some significant empirical data to support your theory that increasing income tax rates results in higher revenue.
You can be assured that I do have empirical data that directly contradicts the theory of higher income tax rates resulting in higher revenue... So be prepared and lets be sure to keep this conversation based on reality.
If you begin from the starting point of "IT'S BUSH'S FAULT!!!" and cherry pick data to support your theory, you could easily make Bush the scapegoat.
