As long as I am focused on the economy, I went searching for what others had to say. While I do not agree with all of Arnold Kling's comments, I agree with this:
The President of the United States is not the CEO of our economy. The President operates under much tighter constraints - and we should be happy about that. Limitations on executive power are a good thing.I do not think that the President should be held accountable for the decline in the dollar, the rise in unemployment, or the rise in the deficit so far. However, I want to make clear that while I am arguing against making the economic attribution error, I am not giving President Bush a "pass" on economic policy.
The Bush economic policy can be evaluated on its own merits. I would give the administration a bad grade on trade, because of the steel tariffs. I would give the administration a bad grade on fiscal policy, because it is making no attempt to identify and implement spending reductions, and because it has not pursued any sort of "exit strategy" for Medicare, which threatens to capture a huge share of GDP for the government... I would give the administration a bad grade on education policy, because it continues to undermine local control of schools.
These policy disappointments cannot be explained away by the economic attribution error. I can say only one thing in defense of the Republicans. On the issues that I just mentioned, their policies are only the second-worst of the two major parties.
As an Independent, I quite agree. Although I do blame President Bush for part of the rise in unemployment. Many jobs were lost as a direct result of the steel tariffs.
Donald Luskin has a nice summary of Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's recent comments:
President Bush's tax cuts "will create a fairly marked increase in after-tax income in the third quarter and one must presume that a goodly part of that will filter into consumer markets" and lead to more hiring." And, ""Fortuitously, this particular cut in taxes is happening at the right time although I doubt if one could have planned that in advance."
Uh, Chairman Greenspan, it is your job to help advise the government on this in advance. Thanks for the belated support.
While not directly related to the national economy, I was pleased to see Bill Murchison makes a good case for part-time legislatures. The folks in Texas reduced spending by almost $10 Billion dollars over two years and then went home. And Texas does not have a State income tax. Nice to see some people understand that they can reduce spending instead of increasing taxes or going into debt.