Politics and Economics Don't Mix

How much influence does the President (any President) really have on the economy? The answer according to most experts is "very little". And yet, we voters seem to have this opinion that politics and the economy go hand in hand. I point this out because of four widely circulated graphs being passed around the Internet. Here they are: I am going to go on the assumption that these graphs are based on actual data and are accurate up to that point. I do not believe anyone would make up a graph that lies, especially, when the actual figures are so easy to be found. The first obvious math mistake with this one is that it is a zoom graph in that it does not start at 0%, so the drastic changes shown here are not as drastic as displayed. The second misleading part of the graph, is the instantaneous growth of unemployment in Bush's first year. The two biggest factors in unemployment that year was the dot com bust (which started while Clinton was still in office) and the 9/11 disaster and other terrorist acts which Bush had to react to. The recent unemployment problem is more Clinton's legacy than Bush's. That being said, the fact that unemployment has not gone down over the past 3 years since 9/11 is going to be a big issue in the Presidential campaign. This one is a head scratcher. Why should each president start out at zero? Why isn't the fact that Clinton was in office for 8 years while the other two were in only four taken into account? Then of course the interpretation of this graph follows the interpretation of the first one. What kind of influence does the President have over the economy? A President's influence comes in two forms: monetary policy and tax policy. Both of these can "push" the economy up or down, but economic momentum tends to go where it wants regardless of who is in office. A president's influence on most specific economic factors, such as the Dow Jones average, is practically non-existent. If a President has near God like control of the economy as the candidates want us to believe, then why would a President ever want the economy to go bad? The Communists had near total control of the economy, and every communist country has ended up with a economic disaster on their hands. Now here is a statistic that the President actually has some control over, although Congress ultimately has more control over the budget than the President does. Obviously the economy overall has more influence as well. Incomes have been going down the last four years, which means income taxes and consumer taxes collected has gone down. Almost every state in the country has had budget problems the last few years, and this includes states controlled by Republicans and Democrats both. Add to that the fact that spending continues to rise despite the complete lack of inflation, and the result is record setting deficits. Of the four charts, this is the most useful one, even though it should be pointed out which years Democrats controlled congress (89 - 94) and which years Republicans did (95 to present). What all four charts are guilty of is selective endpoint picking, and selective statistic picking. If you added the Carter and Reagan administrations to these charts, things would look a bit different. Also there is no doubt that the Republicans could make similar charts using completely different economic stats, that make Clinton look bad. The economy was already starting to Falter even before the Bush vs. Gore election of 2000, and many of us knew that whoever took office was going to be facing a recession. Now there are signs that the economy is beginning to rebound, even though the job market continues to be a sore spot. Whoever wins this year (and it is going to be close again I can tell) is probably going to preside over a good economy regardless of what they actually do in office. The bottom line is, we should not pick a President based on economic factors, even though that is most likely how most people will vote this year. Pick you candidate base on what economic programs they want to implement, or what social issues they support. The economy is going to do what it is going to do regardless of who is in office.