Democrats try to douse red-hot economic news
Treasury secretary says signs of recovery are good
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Snow: Economic signs are "very encouraging."
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After two weeks of positive economic news, a top Bush administration official and two Democratic senators seeking the presidential nomination presented vastly different views Sunday of where the U.S. economy is headed.
"I think it's clearly beginning to show signs of a strong recovery, and a recovery that's accelerating," Treasury Secretary John Snow said on CNN's "Late Edition."
"I don't want to declare victory, by any means. There's still a lot of work to be done. But the signs we saw coming off the third quarter, including the job numbers, were very encouraging."
Asked whether "things could once again go south," Snow replied, "I don't think that's very likely ... that would be a very low probability.
"But that 7 percent growth rate we saw in the third quarter is unusually high, and we'll probably see a lower but still good growth rate in the fourth quarter and, I expect, for all of '04." (Economic outlook)
Yet Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts said on CBS's "Face the Nation," "The growth that we have seen is not a jobs-creating growth. In fact, it's one of the worst months measured against Bill Clinton's months of economic recovery.
"Two hundred and fifty thousand people stopped looking for jobs last month. The month before that, 250,000 people stopped looking for jobs. So they're not even recorded in this so-called 'recovery.' "
Fellow Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina said there have been "some signs of encouragement.
"But my view is that we're going to have to see a lot more to indicate that we have any kind of sustained economic growth," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Both Edwards and Kerry lashed out against Bush's policies, blaming him for what they called historic job losses and a record deficit.
Edwards said the president's tax cuts are shifting the tax burden away from the wealthy and onto the middle class.
He said that as president he "would get rid of the tax cut for people that earn, basically, over $200,000 a year."
He also would raise the capital gains rate and get rid of some corporate tax loopholes, he said.
Kerry accused Bush of "running a bargain bazaar for special interests on the energy bill, on prescription drugs, in Iraq.
"It's one of the greatest plunderings of America that I've ever seen, and we need to stand up against it."
Snow praised Bush's efforts, saying the president inherited a recession and had to cope with challenges stemming from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, corporate scandals and significant stock market declines, in addition to the costs of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"This economy has been through extraordinary shocks, and yet we've continued to move forward. And now we're in a good recovery," he said.
But, Snow said, "we aren't going to rest until everybody who's looking for a job can find one."
