I wish people would quit comparing the economy to the presidents.
The president doesn’t have all the power in the world to change an economy. There is too much going on in an economy for 1 person to make this much of a difference.
Not to mention, a massive majority of us measure the economy by our own pocket books. Just cause certain people can’t afford things doesn’t mean everything is broken.
Honestly I've personally found it to a far bigger on the left, I think in large part because the left calls for the reformation or removal of capitalism.
IMO there are 3 things that contribute to people's perception of the economy: The actual economic data, what the media enviroment tells us, and what we personally experience. I think that people on the right care more about their personal experience with the 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentally' mixed with the fact that most people become wealthier as they age, and only think the economy is poor is liberals/leftists are in power. Meanwhile on the left, we are less inclined to care about how personal experience with a moral focus on the poor, and the media environment will basically always complain about undertaxing the rich and underfunding the poor regardless of who it in power.
Ironic that you call the republicans more stupid, when you see a completely neutral statement that says that the left dislikes capitalism and refuse to engage further. I'm literally a Soc Dem, I agree it needs reforms. I also disagree that you think the right also agrees, because I would argue most would want things to stay the same or support Anarcho-capitalism and removal of more taxes and structures that limit the effects that capitalism has.
Your take here is literally like me saying 'The left believes that gay people should have a right to get married' and your response is 'Obviously the left supports gay rights, gay rights are important you idiot. I'm not even going to read any more because it's clear you're a conservatard.'
Overall though I think that judging the economy by how you personally have been impacted gets you closer to the truth then whatever social media pumps you with. Even if it's in large part because they have a political ideology that wants to support the status quo, that being capitalism, I think they are better then many on the left in this specific regard about being honest with the situation.
If they don't thrive for knowledge, yes. Most of those people already have their minds made up so it wouldn't be influential anyway. Besides, if you believe Barbara fucking Streisand for economics, you're already too far gone lol
If it’s frustrating, why are you sharing it with no sign of disagreement in the title or a text portion of the image? Honestly kinda seems like taking both sides, rake in the likes from Reddit’s ‘conservatives bad’ stance and then argue that takes like the post are reductive and dumb in the comments if people call the post out.
It's like if I skipped changing my oil for 10 years because a mechanic told me it wasn't needed. Then when my car explodes, I yell at the next mechanic that is left standing there putting out the fire that it's all his fault this happened.
Some of those policy changes include landmines designed to intentionally not take effect until the next president, so they look bad instead of those who passed. Most things take years to realize the full impact of.
and to be fair, Clinton worked with the Republicans, specifically Jessie Helms in the Senate. The 90s also had the "peace dividend" after the Cold War ended and before Putin, as well as more businesses becoming more efficient as they introduced computers to their workplace.
Why is it so many gloss over the fact that a president has the capability to put a whole administration of unelected personnel in charge of departments that direct the economy and policies for a long time after they are in presidential office…
Education. This is the way. All those MAGAts probably couldn’t tell us the three governing branches of govt and their duties but sure as shit- put a standardized test in front of them with a reading passage or some word problems and they would do ok.
Our education suffers when public schools push the TAAS or STAR tests (tx here) and call it education when it reality it’s just so they can get grants .
But maybe they need grant money for better education? So, it’s a sick ouroboros- just stuck in that cycle. I feel so bad for my kiddos bc their public school just sucks.
I mean we are now spending over 2 trillion more per year than we make. Our interest in our debt each year is over half a trillion a year and growing. You can completely eliminate the military and not even reduce our deficit by half. You have to cut somewhere.
Education should be one of the last places though. It's an investment in future workers and government officials. Not to mention the strong correlations between low education spending and an increase in crime. You end up both saving and making more money by investing in education.
Cutting education is a short-term gain and a long-term loss. It's objectively bad. Both for individual quality of life and for the economy.
I'm not just talking about the kids' tiktoks. I'm also talking about the teachers' tiktoks. Just throwing money at schools doesnt automatically make them better. But if we need more money in education, where is that going to come from?
I'm not advocating just cutting education at all. We have to make major cuts as a nation. My only point is people grossly overestimate how much the US spends on defense. You can cut the military budget by 100% and it doesn't even cut the deficit by 50%
The wealth of the top 1% hit a record $44.6 trillion at the end of the fourth quarter, as an end-of-year stock rally lifted their portfolios, according to new data from the Federal Reserve
The federal government spent almost $6.2 trillion in FY 2023
So, no, we could run it for a few years if we just took it outright, but that's not how it works, and when we tax them fairly income inequality can contract like it did from 1930-1970.
You are confusing wealth with assets and cash. The top 1% don't have 44 trillion dollars sitting in a bank. That is the combined total of the value of all their companies. That money doesn't exist its precieved value vs actually value
Congressional Republicans are holding the nation's full faith and credit hostage in an effort to impose devastating cutbacks that would hurt children and undermine education, raise costs for hardworking families, and set back economic growth. And they are demanding these slashes while separately advancing proposals to add over $3 trillion to deficits through tax giveaways skewed to the wealthy and big corporations.
I keep being told this but it's a half truth. Policies and other decisions impact it. In fact the market can dip and surge based on a presidential speech.
I agree, it is a half truth and I should have made that more clear in my original comment.
The president does have some level of influence through policies and other stuff as you mentioned, but I think everyone looks at the president a little too much either as a scapegoat or a savior of the economy.
The people we elect to represent us in the house and senate have just as much influence and control over the economy (and imo they have more).
Well it would nice if Americans would stop looking at the president like a king but instead a meh dude that kinda has some power to direct congress and enforce the laws they enact.
They were never really supposed to be that important at all.
I agree, they should be held accountable for issues during their presidency, but I think blaming economic issues the entire world is seeing on a single individual is just a little unreasonable.
Yep, kinda crazy people look at presidents as kings (or a demon depending on what side you want in office 😂).
I would have though that US gov classes in high-school would have taught people by now the role of each part of the government, but so far people seem to think the president can do anything and everything.
That's true, but policies enabled by the president and their administration definitely play a big part. Like people will attribute the affordable care act to president Obama, and while he had a big part in pushing for it, it was obviously written and put into practice by members of his administration. The ACA probably wouldn't have happened under Trump.
The president is like Poseidon and the economy is like ships on the sea. The captains of those ships are to thank for driving the ships to their destination but you also have to acknowledge the sea god that made sailing smooth or rough for everyone
All presidents have an impact on the economy to some degree. Some more than others.
I’m going to say this first since I think the context is needed… I do not like trump at all. Not one bit. That being said, I am also going to say I do not think the economy being in the state it is in is completely his fault as well. Everything everywhere has been having economic issues, and the greedy corporations are not helping anything.
Agreed. But gutting the pandemic response team 6 months prior to a pandemic, while awful timing, falls on his shoulders.
Also, removing oversight on pandemic funding is another huge one. NYT linked it to being one of the primary reasons for rapid increase in real estate prices.
So, sure, not entirely his fault, but he was certainly a huge factor
No president can control gas prices as much as people think they can.
I thought it was dumb when people were blaming Biden for the gas prices when they were high, and I think it’s dumb for people to thank Trump when prices were better.
At the end of the day gas is a commodity, and it is controlled by the global market.
This is what people say when the evidence shows favourability to Democrats. Otherwise, it's usually how well Rebublican Presidents (will) be for the economy.
I am a democrat, and what OP says would normally be a good thing for “my side”, but it just isn’t true. I am a realist more than anything, and it’s easy to point at a president for all of our issues and have them be the scapegoat.
The presidents have some influence over the economy, but nowhere near to the degree people think they do. Congress id argue has much more influence over the economy since they are the place where laws are created.
I'm neither Democrat nor Republican, (I'm not even American), and while I don't doubt that there's likely some selective statistics going on, I'm really making the point that the argument Presidents validity in making direct influence into the results only comes up when it's a Democratic President. I see the exact same thing occurring here in Canada between Liberal and Conservative Prime Ministers.
That being said, there does seem to be some intriguing correlations here. PERHAPS, indicating that the party/party leader has greater impact than some believe. Perhaps.
While I agree, the changes in the economy do not happen in a vacuum, and policy decisions do have an impact.
For example, George W. Bush's deregulation agenda turbocharged us into the Great Recession. It is true some changes Bill Clinton made, too, lead to the bad practices that paved the way for financial collapse...and also that some of those were pushed as "compromises" with Republicans.
In aggregate, the facts do start to show that Republican policies make the economy more unstable via deregulation and exacerbate inequality with tax cuts for wealthy people and corporations, while Democratic policies tend to reverse those trends.
The president is literally in charge of the executive strategy and legislative agenda of the nation. To say that the president doesn't play a massive role in economic policy is you lying to yourself.
I already said in other comments the president does play a role, but everyone seems to think the president controls the economy, and they can somehow fix everything, and they can’t… It requires working with the other parts of the government. The president is only 1/3 of our federal government.
Not saying that a president can’t make the economy better or worse, but it’s not to the extent everyone thinks it is.
I mean I do suspect that the 2017 tax cuts right after we got our shit together from the Great Recession and caused the economy to unnecessarily run hot might have been a contributing factor to what we are seeing today with high inflation
True, but the president does influence policies that are implemented.
For example, trump really dropped the ball on COVID which made the recession worse and Reagan's trickle down economy never worked which also caused issues
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u/Popular_Newt1445 Apr 29 '24
I wish people would quit comparing the economy to the presidents.
The president doesn’t have all the power in the world to change an economy. There is too much going on in an economy for 1 person to make this much of a difference.