Comments on: Are Republican Presidents Bad for the Economy?

By: The Stone City

The Stone City — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 13:40:10 +0000

Significance

It occurred to me that, since the US economy does not exist in a vacuum, we could take a different look at GDP growth numbers by comparing US growth to that in other countries.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 12 May 2005 00:38:31 +0000

is there a convenient ommission regarding Clinton's .Com Boom, of Clinton's Oval Office Boom Boom? The lies to congress and Impeachment that followed weren't a terrible pick me up for the economy, leading to a recession in the first qtr of 2001.

By: JackLewis.net

JackLewis.net — Tue, 10 May 2005 16:24:18 +0000

Around the Blogosphere
No to Judges outside the Liberal Plantation Powerline, Captain's Quarters Ann Coulter and the Intolerance of Academe Powerline, Volokh Conspiracy...

By: McGehee

McGehee — Tue, 10 May 2005 15:12:20 +0000

Funny, that was my thought on seeing Kevin Drum's name on the other thing. ;-)

By: Jim Henley

Jim Henley — Tue, 10 May 2005 03:13:18 +0000

Oh dear. John Lott. I hope we can do better than that.

By: James Durbin

James Durbin — Mon, 09 May 2005 21:38:12 +0000

A quick google search after a reasoned approach - and voila - the conclusion

By: James Durbin

James Durbin — Mon, 09 May 2005 21:37:47 +0000

The whole study is rife with convenient methods. The one year lag-time conveniently gives Democrats a win in every presidency. if the lag time is two to three years, or weighted evenly across four years, suddenly the data favors Republicans. Remember that presidents don't get their first budget until October of their first year, so the data is only three months old. Second, I find it astounding that anyone can use data points that conveniently ignore the composition of Congress, especially considering the historic loss of 40 years of Democratic rule in 1994. That counts for nothing?
I don't buy the idea that a President has that much of an effect that early, but there is a good explanation we can easily track.
Consumer spending, and therefore consumer confience is the major variable in GDP. If something happened on an ongoing basis only during Republican administrations , there might be a correlation that proves that the economy does better under Democrats.
In the heydays of the Clinton Administration, unemployment was at 5.2%. Today it is 5.2%. I wonder who it was that reported the news in the 90's as the greatest economy ever and today's as a weakened economy.

By: Jim Henley

Jim Henley — Mon, 09 May 2005 18:24:05 +0000

James, that's a nice top-level summary. I suspect that the post-Cold War defense drawdown begun under Bush helps the Clinton-era growth, too, since it helped relieve deficit pressure and turned a lot of bright minds loose for peaceful commercial use.

I'd also lay some of the recession that commenced the 21st Century on Clinton's counterproductive antitrust policy, exemplified in its jihad against Microsoft. Admittedly, Congress had quite a hand in that, and on a bipartisan basis too. Among the things the dot-com boom suffered was a determined campaign by the political class to bring it under the sway of the federal protection racket: IOW, force Silicon Valley to join the lobbying-and-donating ecology it had ignored.

By: Scott_T

Scott_T — Mon, 09 May 2005 18:01:27 +0000

It's Guns and Butter, not Guns and Better... :D

Kinda early for Kevin Drum to be judging the aftermath, economically, of OIF now, and not in 2-3 years though, IMO.