Recession? Cheney says America's economy is the 'envy of the world'
 Vice President Dick Cheney, who declared $2.5 million in taxable income last year and $8.8 million in 2006, says America's economy is strong as ever.
The VP who said Iraq's insurgency was in it's "last throes" in 2005 and the economy is currently in a "rough patch" gave the financial health of the United States a ringing endorsement in Northeast Philadelphia Thursday morning.
Cheney said that the US economy “remains the envy of the world,” and that the recent “slowdown” might have been worse had Bush not enacted tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.
Because of this, he said, “the slowdown that did come was a fairly mild one.”
“For the better part of six years now, this nation's economy grew without pause,” Cheney added.
More from the Buck's County Courier Times:
On Thursday morning, the average cost of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline in the region crept to a record $3.67 a gallon, global food prices continued to soar and a Gallup poll showed that 86 percent of Americans believe the economy is getting worse. Yet Cheney said Americans should be “confident of the road ahead.”
Congressman Patrick Murphy ripped Cheney for his view of the economy.
“To tell Pennsylvania families that our economy is strong when so many of them are struggling is a slap in the face,” said Murphy, a Democrat who represents Bucks County and small parts of Montgomery County and Philadelphia. “It's time for Democrats and Republicans to start working together to solve problems instead of pretending that there are none.”
Cheney's roughly eight-minute speech before about 150 employees at the Philadelphia Regional Financial Center focused on the economic stimulus package passed by Bush and Congress this year in an effort to boost the country's sluggish economy. The center, located less than a mile from the Bensalem border and within the 8th Congressional District, is one of four processing centers throughout the country that have already started issuing the estimated 132 million economic stimulus payments.
Cheney said the payments -- which amount to $600 for single workers, $1,200 for couples and $300 per child -- will be an “economic lift that's felt in every corner of our economy.”
Except maybe for Cheney. At $2.8 million in income last year, he doesn't qualify.
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