Category Archives: Obama Administration

What Did the Debates Tell Us About What the Candidates Will Do if Elected?

Share Button

Every pundit agrees that President Obama did badly in the first debate.  But I can’t help wondering whether he (and VP Joe Biden) would have been able to come out swinging as freely as they have in the subsequent debates, if it were not for what happened in Denver.  Obama must have been afraid of sounding unpresidential.   But because his initial performance was so roundly criticized for passivity, he was licensed after that to argue aggressively:  “What you are saying is not true, Governor Romney.”  And it helps that he was right, each time.   (My morning-after talking-head comments can be viewed: “Re-cap of 1st Presidential Debate,” Oct.4; and “Re-cap” of 2nd Presidential Debate, Oct.17.) read more

Share Button

Economists Polled on the Pre-Election Economy

Share Button

         A survey of economists is published in the November 2012 issue of Foreign Policy.  One question was whether we thought that the US unemployment rate would dip below 8.0% before the election.   When the FP conducted the poll at the end of the summer, unemployment was 8.1-8.2%.  Now it’s 7.8%.  Only 8% of the respondents said “yes.”   (I was one.  I basically just extrapolated the trend of the last two years.)   

My fellow economists choose defense spending and agricultural subsidies as the two categories of US federal budget that they think the best to cut.  They rate the euro crisis as the greatest threat to the world economy now and are particularly worried about Spain.    read more

Share Button

Sinners, Red States, Blue States

Share Button

Mitt Romney, presidential candidate, said in now-infamous comments that 47% of the American electorate is dependent on the federal government, that he will never be able to teach them to take personal responsibility for their lives, and that they are certain to vote for Barack Obama in November.   He continues a tradition in his party that goes back at least three decades:  building political campaigns around the proposition that folks in the heartland exhibit the American virtues of self sufficiency and personal responsibility and the implication that other, more urban, regions display decadent social values and dependency on government. read more

Share Button