The practice of many on the right, pundits, politicians, and some business types, is to argue that what a President does has a huge impact upon the economy. Using this notion, Krugman, in today’s column for The New York Times, begins by examining the lack of job creation under the previous president and the recent boom (14 million total jobs since the nadir of employment in 2010) under the current president, then writes
Does President Obama deserve credit for these gains? No. In general, presidents and their policies matter much less for the economy’s performance than most people imagine.
So was his column inaccurately titled? Well, consider this paragraph:
The point, however, is that politicians and pundits, especially on the right, constantly insist that presidential policies matter a lot. And Mr. Obama, in particular, has been attacked at every stage of his presidency for policies that his critics allege are “job-killing” — the former House speaker, John Boehner, once used the phrase seven times in less than 14 minutes. So the fact that the Obama job record is as good as it is tells you something about the validity of those attacks.
Those attacks focused, in case people have forgotten, on the supposed job-killing aspects of Dodd-Frank financial reform, raising the top (and effective) tax rates on the wealthy, and most of all, the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare.”
So what has been the result?
Not only have “none of the dire predicted consequences of these policies have materialized.” The job-killing aspects have been shown to be false;
More detailed examinations of labor markets also show no evidence of predicted ill effects.
Still, have we gotten to the point of the title? After all, so far what Krugman has demonstrated is that the Republicans and conservatives were wrong in their dire predictions. He writes
So what do we learn from this impressive failure to fail? That the conservative economic orthodoxy dominating the Republican Party is very, very wrong.
In a way, that should have been obvious. For conservative orthodoxy has a curiously inconsistent view of the abilities and motivations of corporations and wealthy individuals — I mean, job creators.
And it is that “snark” if you will that leads to the heart of his column.
The next several paragraph are delicious, and must be read in the entirety to appreciate the column fully. Unfortunately were I to quote the completely I would be in clear violation of fair use.
But consider: in the first of these paragraphs Krugman points out the contradiction between an
elite is presumed to be a bunch of economic superheroes, able to deliver universal prosperity by summoning the magic of the marketplace
and the caterwauling of their being
depicted as incredibly sensitive flowers who wilt in the face of adversity
and you really must read the words that follow those in that block quote.
In the next graph Krugman points out that while the doctrine does not make much sense, it is very convenient for that self-same elite,
namely, that injustice is a law of nature
with which we had better not mess lest with disturb the correct order (implied but not stated by Krugman of the continued dominance of the elites) with devastating effects. After all, the “invisible hand” of the market will wreak its vengeance.
Krugman points out how the historical evidence gainsays this, noting
After all, America achieved rapid, indeed unprecedented, income growth in the 1950s and 1960s, despite top tax rates beyond the wildest dreams of modern progressives.
Remember, under Eisenhower and a Republican Congress the top marginal tax rate hit 90%, oh and unions expanded to be about a 1/3 of private sector employment.
Further, as Krugman notes, there are current examples (eg Denmark) that give the lie to this conservative blathering.
So is the title wrong, or a joke? Not really. It is an accurate representation of how opposite the economic reality is to what dire forecasts of those on the other side of politics, economics, and fairness. It has not been a bust. As Krugman writes in his final paragraph
But for those who don’t know much about either history or the world outside America, the Obama economy offers a powerful lesson in the here and now. From a conservative point of view, Mr. Obama did everything wrong, afflicting the comfortable (slightly) and comforting the afflicted (a lot), and nothing bad happened. We can, it turns out, make our society better after all.
And that is not a bust.
And what is the opposite of an economic bust?
Welcome to the Obama boom, however flawed it may be.
And to avoid its opposite, a Republican bust, remember — vote Democratic.
Peace.