In last week’s National Journal of political bloggers, one question asked: “If unemployment remains at roughly the current level, what impact will that have on the 2010 midterm elections?” One hundred percent of the Right, and 89 percent of the Left bloggers thought it would hurt Democrats, and most thought it would hurt them a lot. I agreed: “It’s easy to imagine the Republican campaign ads which show the Democratic charts predicting how bad unemployment would get without the stimulus — juxtaposed with how much worse unemployment actually got after the Democrats’ deficit spending spree was adopted.”
For the other question, both Left and Right reversed their positions from last June. Sixty-five percent of the Left now think it is “somewhat likely” that Congress will pass Cap & Trade. Sixty-five percent of the Right now thinks passage is “very” or “somewhat” unlikely. So both Left and Right have become more optimistic in the past few years. Objective proof that “hope” is on the rise.
I was in the minority of the Right who thought C/T somewhat likely: “The bill will see lots of ‘no’ votes from Blue Dogs and from other Democrats who represent energy-producing states. But there may be enough support from urban/suburban Republicans for something to pass.” Certainly a C/T bill that included lots of the ideas which John McCain has proposed, and which greatly cut back on the rent-sales that appear in the House-passed bill, the bill would be nearly unstoppable.
Abdul Abulbul Amir says:
Unstoppable? I always thought that the lesson to be learned from Herbert Hoover’s and FDR’s big tax increases in a business down turn is just don’t that. Sigh, that appears not to be the case.
Quote
November 9, 2009, 3:51 pm24AheadDotCom says:
In the text, it helps if you replace “bloggers” with “partisan hacks hoping one day to appear on Fox or MSNBC and opining while waiting”.
Meanwhile, back in March I sent an open letter to CAP suggesting that they support enforcing our imm. laws in order to free up jobs for Americans. AFAIK, I got no support with that at the time, and I’m going to guess that none of the r/w bloggers in the poll are suggesting that as an effective way to reduce unemployment. Instead, they’re simply retailing something they got from the “Club for Growth at any Cost” or similar groups, such as AFP.
[DK: Speaking as someone who favors strong enforcement of our immigration laws, I can tell you that your hasty, unsubstantiated conjecture about what VC writers supposedly think is incorrect. More generally, the nasty, childish, and aggressive tone of the post is inappropriate for the VC, and will result in deletion and ban if repeated.]
Quote
November 9, 2009, 3:56 pmyankee says:
Of course it will hurt the Democrats. Come election time, the incumbent party pretty much always gets the credit/blame for the current state of the economy, whether it’s justified or not.
Quote
November 9, 2009, 4:04 pmHouston Lawyer says:
Telling business owners that you are going to raise their costs is not a very effective stimulus to get them to hire workers.
While the Republicans have certainly not done anything that would justify their return to power, the Democrats may soon be hoping that they fare as well in 2010 as they did in 1994.
Interestingly, unemployment compensation now comes in the form of a debit card, which makes good sense actually.
Quote
November 9, 2009, 4:20 pmPersonFromPorlock says:
Well, in that case there won’t be “10% unemployment.”
Good lord, this stuff is just basic. Always remember: spin is much better than reality.
Quote
November 9, 2009, 4:27 pmJust Dropping By says:
Unstoppable? I always thought that the lesson to be learned from Herbert Hoover’s and FDR’s big tax increases in a business down turn is just don’t that. Sigh, that appears not to be the case.
Well, since the Waxman-Markey bill provides that the regulations for emission allowances aren’t even due to be promulgated until up to two years after the bill’s passage (see page 76 of the PDF at the link below) and many of the other provisions of the bill phase in over literally decades (see, e.g., page 87 — setting emissions limits for electrical generating units with pre and post-January 1, 2019 start dates), it appears that the lesson has been learned and your complaint is irrelevant.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090518/hr2454_ans.pdf
Quote
November 9, 2009, 4:45 pmwfjag says:
That’s not quite true. In 1982, when unemployment exceeded 10%, the Republicans lost 26 House seats. This was not much more than would have been expected in the mid-term election of losses by the party having control of the White House.
The Democrats will be hurt by the pronouncements in January & February of this year that without the “Stimulus” bill, unemployment would reach 9.5%, but with it, unemployment would be kept to 8%. Many Democrats rushed to make such statements before the cameras. Those statements will make great visuals for ads by opponents. Further, Democrats will be hurt by the fact that the “Stimulus” bill added to the record deficit. The Deficit Hawks who were disgusted with the Republicans’ failure to balance the budget, will turn out heavily to vote against Democrats who are on track to create a larger deficit in Obama’s first term than the prior 43 Presidents and their associated Congresses. Moreover, while the “official” unemployment rate is 10.2%, the actual unemployment/ under-employment rate (including people who have given up looking for work, those involuntarily forced to accept part-time work with loss of benefits, and those forced to return to school for training so they can look for a job in a new field) is between 17% and 20%. Additionally, the administration’s “saved or created” jobs figures are so completely flawed, so as to raise questions about them being deliberate misrepresentations. A loss of credibility by the Obama Administration would undermine one of the most important reasons people voted for him and Congressional Democrats – hope & change “you can believe in.” If there is no credibility, there will be no “belief,” and the formerly faithful will not turn out to vote. Furthermore, the administration also has the problem of the recent announcement that there was 3d quarter growth in the GDP, meaning that the recession is over. That, also, carries with it the risk of blame if there is a decline in GDP in the 4th quarter of this year or next year (which is possible, since any recovery appears weak, in addition to being essentially a jobless recovery). It will not be credible to blame Bush for continuing economic problems since the administration has declared the recession over. (Actually, except to partisans, the blame Bush approach is sounding more and more hallow. If the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats are not up to solving whatever problems were created by Republican control of Congress (which ended in 2006) and the Bush 43 Presidency, then they need to be replaced so see if someone else can solve the problems.) Additionally, should anything resembling the just passed version of the House Health Care Reform (or Health Care Insurance Reform — I keep getting confused on the latest pronouncement on the bill’s object) is enacted into law, there will be additional job losses. Many businesses will not be able to pay for employee health insurance, and to avoid bankruptcy will fire employees and hire contract labor in their stead. This avoids (among other costs) the 8% penalty tax. However, this will force contract employees to obtain health insurance through more expensive individual insurance policies, and without employer matching on premiums, it will be less expensive for businesses. Finally, there is the race factor. As the first African-American candidate for a major party was on the ballot, African-Americans turned out in record numbers to vote for Obama, and he got about 97% of that vote. Many younger voters turned out to vote for him for the same reason. They, also, overwhelmingly voted for other Democratic Party candidates. Since Obama is not on the ballot in 2010, this will not be a factor aiding Democratic Party candidates.
High unemployment and under-employment will hurt Democrats in 2010 not merely because they are the incumbent party. Rather, Democrats have controlled Congress since January 2007, and have made a lot of promises that are not being fulfilled. Democrats came to power by successfully blaming Republicans for record deficits and failure to create jobs. While Bush 43 was President, unemployment fell to 4.9%. Democrats will be hurt by being compared against their own promises, and there do not appear to be many issues to excite groups that usually vote for Democrats to go to the polls. However, there will be a lot of motivation for groups that oppose policies of this administration and Democrats in Congress to vote.
One bright spot for Democrats is that, unlike 1994 (so far), no one has come out with something akin to the Contract With America. Being opposed to the current administration and party controlling Congress isn’t the same as having a plan of your own. Another bright spot is the RNC. You can nearly always depend on the RNC to do something that is bone-headed.
Quote
November 9, 2009, 5:04 pm24AheadDotCom says:
[DK: Speaking as someone who favors strong enforcement of our immigration laws, I can tell you that your hasty, unsubstantiated conjecture about what VC writers supposedly think is incorrect. More generally, the nasty, childish, and aggressive tone of the post is inappropriate for the VC, and will result in deletion and ban if repeated.]
What makes you think I was referring to VC writers? My comment referred to “the r/w bloggers in the poll”, and here’s a list:
Only one of those is from this site, and my negative impression of bloggers in general is hardly undeserved based on observing them in “action” since 2002. For a specific example, I can predict with near 100% certainty that I will get zero help from bloggers doing this.
Quote
November 9, 2009, 6:59 pmBruce Hayden says:
I too think that the Democrats are in big trouble if unemployment remains high for the next year. And I will not be surprised if it does. In particular, I would be very surprised if it dropped below the 8 or so percent that the President promised us if Congress passed the “stimulus” bill last winter.
The problem, I think, is that a consensus had somewhat grown that the best solution to recessions was tax cuts. Not one time tax rebates, but actual multi-year rate cuts. But this time around, we were repeatedly assured that that was wrong, and that good old fashioned Keynesian stimulus was what was needed. The theory that my economics profs in the 70s and 80s thought discredited. The paid economists, inside the Administration and out (think Krugman) keep hammering at the multiplier, with each economic whiz trying to outdo the previous one with his projections for the multiplier.
And, maybe, just maybe, it might have worked that way, if the money being spent had been targeted at the recession, instead of all the Democratic interest groups who had helped this crew get elected. It was too good of a crisis to waste, and so it wasn’t. Hundreds of billions of dollars were squandered to pay off these constituencies, and justified as Keynesian stimulus.
Of course, all those newly elected Democrats had no idea what they were voting for, just as they probably didn’t when they voted for PelosiCare last weekend. Time after time, trillion dollar bills go to a vote before anyone has had a chance to read and understand them, on the theory apparently that the little people (including the junior Representatives) don’t need to know the details, and knowing them would just slow down the process. So much for the vaunted new transparency.
What the Democrats have proven in the last less than a year is that they cannot be trusted with power. They have proven themselves to be completely irresponsible with spending and taxing, completely dishonest when it comes to transparency and lobbying, and far more corrupt than the Republicans they replaced. And the only way to get their prolific and irresponsible ways under control is to throw them out of office. Americans tend to prefer divided government, and the last ten months has been a major object lesson on why.
Quote
November 9, 2009, 7:36 pmArthurKirkland says:
If Democrats, after less than a year in the White House, have proved that they can’t be trusted with power,
and Republicans, during eight years, proved that they can’t be trusted with anything approximating power . . .
as Stork asked the Deltas (just before Belushi’s WWII history lesson):
“Well, what the hell we s’pozed t’ do, y’ mo-ron?”
Quote
November 9, 2009, 10:05 pmbyomtov says:
a consensus had somewhat grown that the best solution to recessions was tax cuts.
Bruce,
I don’t think there was any such consensus, at least not among economists. The problem with tax cuts is that they do nothing in the absence of demand. If you give me a tax cut that reduces my production costs by some amount I’m still not going to increase production if I can’t sell my output.
Quote
November 9, 2009, 10:14 pm24AheadDotCom says:
Continuing on (bowdlerized and sanitized for your protection):
1. Here’s a list of those who’ve deleted my comments or banned me. If you can find a case where a deletion/banning wasn’t a case of someone showing that they have mental or emotional failings, let me know.
2. Here’s me trying to make Paul Krugman look bad over him ignoring an easy way to find jobs for Americans. I also tweeted at him and encouraged my readers to put him on the spot over that. I’ve also left a couple comments along those lines at other sites. Maybe David Kopel could list some bloggers who’ve done something similar over the specific issue of enforcing our imm. laws in order to reduce unemployment.
3. In fact, can David Kopel list for us some bloggers who’ve proposed imm. enforcement as a way to reduce unemployment? Because, I’m having trouble finding any bloggers doing that; instead the major bloggers I see (ex: EdMorrissey) do little more than spout AFP talking points. (Note: Morrissey deleted one of my comments a couple years ago after I took him to task for not asking the Huckster about the Huckster’s weakest position; Morrissey didn’t realize who I was and then later deleted the comment he’d left in reply.)
4. On this thread, I invite the reader to rank those involved by what they’re doing to actually reduce unemployment in the U.S. That’s one of my major goals; others obviously aren’t that goal-oriented.
Quote
November 9, 2009, 10:57 pmChrisTS says:
I had a professor in grad school who proudly told us that the fact that almost everyone at a conference presentation laughed at his paper was a sign that he was right.
Quote
November 9, 2009, 11:38 pmAbdul Abulbul Amir says:
The bill is not final. That taxes (costs) will rise in some form is certain if the bill becomes law. Exactly what will be taxed and at what rate is uncertain at this time.
This means that making a long term investment decision is riskier before passage than after passage as costs will be better defined after passage. At the very least some investments (job creations) will be delayed until after passage resulting in lost employment opportunities. In some cases the new tax burden, no matter its phase in timing, will make some investments too risky and those jobs will be simply lost.
Quote
November 10, 2009, 8:55 amPersonFromPorlock says:
But if you give me a tax cut too, then I have more money to spend and can buy your product.
Quote
November 10, 2009, 3:07 pmPete Murphy says:
Unemployment, both in the U.S. and the world as a whole, marches ever higher because the field of economics doesn’t account for the relationship between population density and per capita consumption.
Following the beating the field of economics took over the seeming failure of Malthus’ theory, economists adamantly refuse to ever again consider the effects of population growth. If they did, they might come to understand that once an optimum population density is breached, further over-crowding begins to erode per capita consumption and, consequently, per capita employment.
And these effects of an excessive population density are actually imported when a nation like the U.S. attempts to trade freely with other nations much more densely populated — nations like China, Japan, Germany, Korea and a host of others. The result is an automatic trade deficit and loss of jobs — tantamount to economic suicide.
Using 2006 data, an in-depth analysis reveals that, of our top twenty per capita trade deficits in manufactured goods (the trade deficit divided by the population of the country in question), eighteen are with nations much more densely populated than our own. Even more revealing, if the nations of the world are divided equally around the median population density, the U.S. had a trade surplus in manufactured goods of $17 billion with the half of nations below the median population density. With the half above the median, we had a $480 billion deficit!
If you‘re interested in learning more about this important new economic theory, then I invite you to visit either of my web sites at OpenWindowPublishingCo.com or PeteMurphy.wordpress.com where you can read the preface, join in the blog discussion and, of course, buy the book if you like. (It’s also available at Amazon.com.)
Pete Murphy
Author, “Five Short Blasts”
Quote
November 10, 2009, 9:22 pm