Posted on 09/30/2015 3:48:30 PM PDT by Sean_Anthony
Recovery? Er, no . . .
Gauging the economic performance of a president is a tricky thing for a lot of reasons, not least of which is the fact that so many statistics sound like apples-to-apples but really aren’t (like the U3 unemployment rate for example, which doesn’t tell you the change in labor force participation), and the fact that politicians cherry-pick statistics that don’t always mean what they want you to think they mean (like “jobs created”).
There is also this: Much of what happens in the economy is not controlled by politicians. That’s a hard one to swallow sometimes because we tend to want to assess presidents on the basis of things like “how he manages the economy” when in fact he does no such thing.
The best economic performance of a president, or politicians, is to lessen regulations, lower taxes, and let capitalism work. Too much of what politicians do interferes with the smooth functioning of the economy.
Just my opinion.
Remember Jimmy Carter crtitcized President Ford for the misery index, which added together rates of inflation and unemployment. But when Carter ran for re election, the misery index was much higher than the date he criticized Ford for.
Many people give Bill Clinton credit for presiding over good economic times in the 1990s. But how much of that was really due to anything Clinton did???
Mostly you can see better economics the more you have Republicans in Congress. Clinton’s economy got well after the ‘94 “Republican takeover."
Newt took Bubba to the well three times kicking’ & screaming’ before he signed a watered-down version of tax cuts
Sickening
No. Clinton got much credit for things which had absolutely nothing to do with him.
The 90s were driven by several economic factors. The end of the Cold war brought new optimism to the future outlook of the nation. The Cell phone system was being built out, and there was HUGE investment going into the tech industry. Computers were transitioning from toys and dedicated business machines, into ubiquitous installations in every home.
The tech related economic advancements were coming regardless of who was President. Add to this the fact that the media hyped every economic good news under Clinton while they spent years attempting to create a fake impression of bad economic activity under Bush. So yeah, when the media are refusing to cover bad news, and pushing coverage of good news (like they do with Obama.) it creates an impression in the public mind that enhances economic activity and encourages investment.
Bill Clinton *IS* responsible for one batch of economic activity. He built upon Jimmy Carter's CRA (community reinvestment act) which collected racial data for housing loans, and Bill Clinton pushed for loans to be issued to correct what he asserted was housing loan discrimination.
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae then started backing up horrible loans for people who could barely meet their mortgage payments, but for most of Clinton's term, this tactic produced quite a lot of economic activity, but as the 2008 crises demonstrated, it was all FALSE economic activity, that ended up costing the taxpayers an immense amount of money to repair, (which it isn't yet repaired) and very nearly collapsed the financial system in this country.
Yeah, Bill Clinton can get credit for all that Con man bad credit fiasco that made the economic numbers look good for a little while.
I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that Clinton is scum, everything he did was wrong, he caused further damage to the future of the nation, and he gets credit for things he didn't have anything to do with.
And as has been mentioned, we started getting balanced budgets when a Republican congress was elected in 1994.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.