TheLoveBandit
Retired Never Was, Coulda been wannabe
I can see how some may point to it as precipitating changes in corporate policy (ie, can't afford all the damn benefits, cut some headcount!), but I don't think it had much to do with unemployement numbers. As I said, I don't think he had much to do with the recession, and by extension, I don't think he had much influence on unemployment. There were other factors (real estate bubble) that led to an economic recession and THAT led to the unemployment. That's my take. He got dealt a sht hand, and played it as best he could.
I agree 8% is terrible (though it's been worse, obviously). IMO it should be a lot better....but it isn't. The 4% statistic isn't the result of news spin, it is what was agreed to as 'the standard (U-3) for reporting' since I don't know when (at least 2003? Likely a lot earlier?). So 'news' either celebrating or berating a President for it, or a President taking credit or blaming the one before him, are all irrelevant noise, IMO. Credit and blame are disconnected when it comes to actual movement in the economy and unemployment, I believe. It's like tribal priests or castle wizards recognizing an eclipse is due and using it to gain attention and power when they have no real part in it happening. But, unemployment and economy are of interest to the public, so they will get reported, and witchdoctor Presidents will continue to take credit and blame their predecessors. The use of the one value, I agree, IS misleading, and we ought to adjust that to speak to what matters. I'm just pleased we are at least recognizing and capturing the data for what matters, even it if it isn't what's reported. The tough nut to crack would be all the factors that DO influence economy and unemployment.
As to Hillary and not running a deficit....I beg to differ. There is a saying "nature abhors a vacuum", to which there is the similar "govt abhors a surplus". At best, the US gov't might achieve a balanced budget where money brought in equals money spent. But they could not run a surplus - someone would find a way to spend it. The real world citizen in me, who balances a checkbook and would lose my home if I continued to spend well into debt like the gov't says the status quo is insane and desperately wants to flip things around to pay off the debt (to who? the American public?) - this is a reflection of my personal debt aversion...and endless effort to get out of it. But the gov't isn't a real person, they don't have to balance the budget or pay off the debt. In fact, as I understand it, the way gov't budgets work is that they have to spend all they were budgeted from the last go round, or their budget gets reduced the next time - there is no incentive to under spend, quite the opposite, they need to spend it all to ensure they have what they want later. Worse, if they spend it all and need more (oops, spent to early on the wrong stuff, sowwy) then gov't can do a special allowance to cover these oopsies. And, those oopsies become part of the budget in the next round, in addition to whatever increases are approved in the next budget. Spending never goes down. Even when you hear such-and-such dept is getting it's budget slashed....what is cut is the increase, not what was carried over. So, instead of a 4% increase, they 'get slashed' to a 2-3% increase....oh noes!!! But again, whatever a dept spent last year is the minimum they will be allocated the next year. Hence, every president going forward will dig the hole deeper - and it isn't the president's fault, it is how the system is created.
For all the flack each President gets about the budget...let's take a look at the process:
So the President makes a wish list, but the House and Senate cut'n'add all over the place, they approve their version, and then the president signs those deviations to get his budget. This gets missed in a lot of budget bitching, but he is not the sole hand in creating nor deciding what money goes where and for what. The House and Senate have as big, if not a bigger, hand in the process.
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![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
