No, that would suggest that Democratic congresses would be better for the economy. Republicans spend like drunken sailors when they’re in power.
They did in two of those administrations, the bottom two. When a Democrat was President, Republicans did not increase spending much, which gave Democrats a good economic record.
Hurray for Obama! One more for the good guys!
It is not at all clear how much credit Obama can take for the improving economy, since it is entirely possible that it would have recovered no matter who was in charge. However I think these results do demonstrate that Republican claims that an Obama presidency would doom the economy was nothing but partisan scare mongering.
As far as the Republican congress’s effect, it seems like the economy recovered because of rather than in spite of their efforts. Their main accomplishments seem to be, the sequester, the government shut down, and playing chicken with the debt limit, all of which are pretty much uniformly viewed by economists as having been unhelpful to the economy.
You don’t read economists much do you? There is nothing uniform in their analyses. Those that warned of doomsday were wrong, but never admit it.
The result of their efforts was lower spending. Milton Friedman, an economist who incidentally won a Nobel, said that the true level of taxation is spending. Thus keeping spending low means keeping taxation low, which almost all economists agree promotes economic growth.
I think a comparison between the economic growth in countries that pursued fiscal austerity and the economic growth of courtries that pursued more keynesian policies is instructive.
The fact that Obama didn’t get everything he wanted doesn’t mean that he isn’t responsible for stopping the conservatives from engaging in “leave it alone liquidationism” (see Milton Friedman’s criticism of Austrian economists). How many conservatives were saying that we should just “leave it alone” let the bottom fall out that this would leech the bad stuff out of the economy.
Obama pushed Keynesian policies down their throat and even if he didn’t get a public option for Obamacare; or immigration reform; or an assault weapons ban; or all sorts of presidential appointments and nominations.
“who incidentally won a Nobel”? Is this an appeal to authority? Do you give all Nobel Prize winners the same level of deference? :dubious:
No, just pointing out that economists are not necessarily united on whether Republican actions have harmed the economy.
Then why bring up the fact that he won a Nobel, if that wasn’t an appeal to authority? :dubious:
The original argument that economists agreed on something was the original appeal to authority.
4 out of the bottom 5 were Republican presidents. If you’re saying that split governments are good then I would suggest that split governments with a Democratic president do better than split governments with a republican president. And when we look at one party governments, democrats seem to outperform republicans there as well.
You are taking the entire universe of Republican controlled government since the great depression and turning them into exceptions, aren’t you.
So all that federal spending (mostly deficit spending because he cut taxes too)that reagan presided over?
Just because it’s gone pretty well doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been better. And it would have been if not for the obstructionists.
You’re just trying to squirm out of the fact that you’ve held aloft the prize as something to respect while forgetting that Obama has one as well. Backpedal away!
I would agree completely. I don’t think you can predict with confidence that it will hold up given the small sample size. Depends on how the parties change, if they realize what worked for them and what didn’t. I believe that Obama goes unwillingly where Clinton went willingly. The result is the same, but Obama wanted to govern much differently. He wanted to spend a shitload more money. He’s consistently asked for $200 billion more each year since the Republicans took over Congress than what they’ve been willing to give him.
Isn’t one of the arguments Democrats gleefully use against Republicans is that they don’t really support small government, that they spend even more than Democrats when they get total control?
Well, the evidence for that is solid, as are the economic results.
Reagan, like Obama, inherited a moribund economy. So if you prefer, he’s also an exception in that he gets too much credit.
Oh lord, not even in the same universe. Obama’s Nobel was “aspirational”. However, I will acknowledge that by killing Osama bin Laden he has more than earned his Peace Prize. The world is a much more peaceful place with Osama not in it. I’ll give him bonus points for helping take out Qaddafi too. Reagan was probably cheering from the beyond.
Come to that, try convincing anybody on the left that the economy is in good shape or even significantly moving in the right direction.
Or, come to that, that Reagan was good for the economy (in the longer term), which at least the right will believe (which is why, of course, Forbes says it).
Killing people is so pacifist! :rolleyes:
Peace is only furthered by pacifism if everyone is pacifist. If this is not the case, then as a famous writer said, “pacifism is objectively pro-fascist”.
The Nobel Peace Prize is not nearly the same as the Nobel Prize in Economics.
That being said, there’s nothing wrong with an appeal to authority if the reference is to an actual authority. Friedman’s claims on economics are stronger than yours. Paul Krugman’s claims on economics are stronger than yours. They are actual authorities in their fields of economics. That doesn’t mean they are always correct, but they are actual authorities.
Conversely, Matt Damon is not an authority on fracking.
Here is Friedman’s actual quote:
It’s paraphrased, ‘the true burden of taxation is whatever government spends.’
The idea is true in and of itself, and was popularized by his quote.