Goldman Sachs has a sobering forecast of what can be expected to trickle down from Bush‘s failed economic mantras (one can hardly dignify them by calling them policies). Those mantras boil down to a thoroughly irresponsible cocktail: cut taxes, increase spending, dismantle regulation and keep ignoring the consequences thereof till it’s far too late.

The legacy of that destructive combination of irresponsible action and unconscionable inaction ends up looking something like this:

Goldman Sachs projects that the unemployment rate will rise to 9 percent by the fourth quarter of 2009 (the firm has increased its forecast for the unemployment rate a couple of times in the last month). If this holds true and the increase in poverty relative to the increase in unemployment is within the range of the last three recessions, the number of poor Americans will rise by 7.5-10.3 million, the number of poor children will rise by 2.6-3.3 million, and the number of children in deep poverty will climb by 1.5-2.0 million.

If those numbers don’t sound particularly horrifying, maybe these numbers will put those numbers in perspective:

To put this in perspective, the current unemployment rate (seasonally adjusted) is 6.5%; it was under 5% at the beginning of this year. It reached 9% one month in 1975, and was over 9% for about a year and a half in 1982-3; otherwise, it has not come near that level since the BLS’ unemployment statistics start, in 1948. In 2007, the poverty level for an individual was $10,590; for a parent and two kids, it was $16,705. People are described as being in “deep poverty” when they make less than half of that amount. The idea that there will be 1.5-2 million kids in families making half the poverty level is horrifying.

Slight correction there: 1.5-2 million is not the number of kids there will be in families making half the poverty level; it’s the increase in the number of kids in deep-poverty families.

I really wonder whether George Bush will manage to continue living in a bubble after January 20, or whether he will ever come to realize what exactly he has done. To America, and to Americans.