What do you mean, “just” lucky? Isn’t that enough?
The problem is that no POTUS (that I know of) has had the gift of precognition. It’s just not something required for the job - but they act like do have it when they make campaign promises and platforms.
For example:
G.W. Bush came into office with basically no international policy experience. After Clinton’s time, he thought he’d be able to run as a domestic POTUS with other people fielding his international affairs while he gained experience in office. Poppa Bush had complained about this very issue in 1992 when Clinton and Gore were on the Democratic ticket. In 1999, this what Gore had to say:
“You deserve a leader who has been tested in it, who knows how to protect America, and secure peace and freedom,” he says. Gore’s point: That the current GOP front-runner lacks the experience to lead America in a complex and dangerous world.
9/11 happened after Bush had been in office for only 8 months. Suddenly, he couldn’t be the domestic POTUS he’d intended to be. He was forced onto the world stage.
That’s just one example, but it happens all the time. Leaders believe that they will be able to lead a certain way or get certain results based on the situation at the time they make statements - and then before their plans are put into action, the world changes.
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…makes it a study of positive effects… Which is how a report should always be done…
Really? A report should always be a study of positive effects? OK. Got it.
…unless you’re specifically attempting to prove the negative effect.
Oh. Or not.
The only reason to ask why it’s better under a Democrat…
The only reason to ask why it’s better under a democrat is because, under a republican, the economy performs at a baseline by which a comparison can be made. Otherwise the study is nothing more than a meandering through noise (which could explain the conclusion).
There are a few reasons defense spending eats up so much of our budget post 1940.
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The level of tech exploded after WWII. Jet planes, missiles, ICBMs, Nuclear bombs, tanks, helicopters, aircraft carriers, machine guns, night vision goggles, etc etc etc. Even if the size of the force in man power shrank back down, the level and cost of tech is higher and going to be more costly.
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America abandoned its mostly isolationist policies. The standing level of readiness is to be able to fight two wars on two different fronts.
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With the abandonment of isolationism and things like NATO, we now have the obligation to help protect and support several other countries. Europe’s defense spending is less because a) we have bases there for support, and b) if something happened they know they can call on our war machine.
Personally I’d like to see the military scaled way back. This makes me a traitor on some other places I frequent. While I am not saying we should completely neuter it, I think we can scale it way back. We definitely needs our allies to start carrying their own weight more. Either they need to upscale their military, or pay us to maintain ours, because they are relying on us if something were to happen.
“Fiscal policy reactions seem close to “even” across the two parties, and monetary policy is, if anything, more pro-growth when a Republican is president”
In terms of the differences in policy, only fiscal policy is posited as a possible source for the significant D-R growth gap. Shortly afterwards, oil shocks are described as one of "several variables that are mostly “good luck.” ".
A good question that the authors do not ask is; could differences in foreign policy account for why “Democratic presidents have experienced, on average, better oil shocks than Republicans”?
Perhaps economists tend to be concerned with fiscal or monetary policy, while neglecting the possibility that foreign policy could affect GDP.
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I don’t know if you meant to do this, but every time someone wants to minimize perception of defense spending they frame it as a percentage of GDP instead of percentage of budget. Hell, Cap Weinberger did that at a high school town hall meeting in the 80s and Lesley Stahl hustled him offstage (over his protestations) before I got a chance to call him on it.
I was no fan of Weinberger, but after that I liked Stahl even less.
I’m not naive’. I know we’ll never really return to pre-1940’s spending - but politicians pretend that their “reduction suggestions” are great, because they cut the timeline off at that point. I hope you realize that my reason for posting the two images wasn’t to make a plea to return to pre WWII spending, but to show that the timeline cutoff is there for a reason. Because 1940 was 74 years ago, most people who are active adults alive today will have no memories prior to the second Great War.
Here’s a quick article and FOX news report. Earlier this year, Hagel proposed reducing the U.S. Army to pre-WWII size as part of sequestration. News outlets didn’t fully explain what this meant - that WWII had jumped-up military scale post-WWII or that it was in relationship to GDP not population. They just used the length of time to make it seem like Hagel was making an outrageous proposal. That’s why it’s important to understand how people are using timelines.
It’s important when viewing supplied timelines to understand why it is that someone cutoff a timeline at any one point. Cutting it off at different places tells a different story, and may even appear to give wholly different information. (Like our supposedly “low” defense spending.)
I would love to see a reduction in military spending, but we have vets to take care of - and that will add to that spending. So even if we reduced active spending to pre-9/11 standards it still wouldn’t look like that on paper.
I didn’t post those images for that purpose - I posted them to show how different timelines are when you cut them off at different points. I even said so.
A quick look at Reagan → Bush → Clinton → Bush II → Obama should dispel that idea.
Well, the delays vary, you see.
And, let’s face it, deep down inside, whether you know it or not, you believe they are right.
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