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Bill USA

(6,436 posts)
Mon Dec 8, 2014, 09:31 PM Dec 2014

David Brooks on PBS announces Presidents' policies don't affect the economy!

On PBS Newhour, David Brooks elegantly pulled off the Conservative trick of claiming, with complete composure, that reality just isn't really there - when Mark Shields pointed out that over the last - "70 years since World War II, 36 years with a Republican president, 34 years with a Democratic president, in those 70 years, there were 36.7 million jobs created by Republican presidents, while Republicans were office...

...In 34 years, there were 63.7 million created by Democrats. That’s 29 million more"

David Brooks responded, without blinking an eye, that a President's policies don't have much effect on the economy, that it's just the 'business cycle'.

Well, how about that!? All these decades we've been hearing the Right chanting that Republicans can make the economy work and that they know how to create jobs while that Democrats kill the economy and now Brooks tells us that any President doesn't have that much affect on the economy.

Now, when confronted with a study by economist Steve Stoft, and attorney/economic researcher Nathan Salminen that shows that over the past 74 years Democratic administrations produced job creation rates (3%) about triple that of those produced by Republicans (1%) Brooks with complete equanimity, disavows any such notion that Presidential policies have much affect at all on job creation. ... As one of the later 'little Rascals' would say: "REMARKABLE!".



http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/shields-brooks-gets-credit-jobs-growth-protests-race-justice/



Mark Shields: "...70 years since World War II, 36 years with a Republican president, 34 years with a Democratic president, in those 70 years, there were 36.7 million jobs created by Republican — under Republican presidents, while Republicans were office, OK, a little over half the time.

In 34 years, there were 63.7 million created by Democrats. That’s 29 million more. Perhaps it’s an accident once or twice or what. But, I mean, at some point, the Democrats ought to be trumpeting the fact that they have been better on the economy and job creation than have been their opposition."


Brooks: "..if the president could turn up a dial and create jobs, that would be great. But presidents can’t do that. The correlation between policies and actual job creation, there’s a huge amount of lag and they just don’t have that ability. A lot of it is just the function of the cyclical labor market.

Mark mentioned President Bush’s lamentable job performance. But he created a bunch of jobs, and then they all got wiped out in the last year during his recession, because we had this grand recession. And so business cycles come and go. And what the government can do is create a landscape which can create long-term job growth, but it’s rare that an administration has the ability to turn it on and off in that kind of short-term way. So, I just don’t think it’s that germane a number.



Additionally, Brooks makes a truly astounding assertion that Bush had no responsibility for the Trickle Down Disaster!!!!! It was just this 'grand recession'. the business cycle catching the Bushter up!! David doesn't think the numbers for job creation for administrations is a "germane" number.

Well, interestingly enough that's not how Moody's Analytics, or the Congressional Budget Office sees Obama's efforts to restart the economy after the Trickle Down Deregulation disaster (a product of Republican policies of concentration of capital and deregulation). Both organizations credit Obama's policies for creating millions of jobs that would have taken many years to produce if we had waited on David's Business Cycle to do the job.



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David Brooks on PBS announces Presidents' policies don't affect the economy! (Original Post) Bill USA Dec 2014 OP
speaking of jobs Enrique Dec 2014 #1
No, No Way! al_liberal Dec 2014 #2
A wealthy friend of mine just announced Midnight Writer Dec 2014 #3
Reagan began his "trickle down" tax cuts when he took office in 1981 ... 66 dmhlt Dec 2014 #5
The CBO report "Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007" shows how the Bill USA Dec 2014 #6
Amazing the corelation between GOP policy and the economy turning to crap Thor_MN Dec 2014 #4

al_liberal

(420 posts)
2. No, No Way!
Mon Dec 8, 2014, 09:38 PM
Dec 2014

As always science and examination are wrong. White is black, cutting taxes increases revenue, gravity is just another theory, and St Ronnie made America great again. Oh, and sometimes he had rainbows and unicorns flying out of his ass.

Midnight Writer

(21,540 posts)
3. A wealthy friend of mine just announced
Tue Dec 9, 2014, 01:44 AM
Dec 2014

"Trickle down tax cuts are just now starting to work, and Obama is taking the credit"

Argue with that one.

66 dmhlt

(1,941 posts)
5. Reagan began his "trickle down" tax cuts when he took office in 1981 ...
Tue Dec 9, 2014, 08:41 AM
Dec 2014

That's 33 years ago. It took less time to create Mount Rushmore!

Your friend is full of it. (But hope he enjoys his trip down the "Denial" River)

Bill USA

(6,436 posts)
6. The CBO report "Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007" shows how the
Tue Dec 9, 2014, 05:30 PM
Dec 2014

population, divided into quintiles, faired in terms of income gains/losses since 1979 up until 2007. The gains in after tax income, from 1979 all the way to 2007, for all but the top 20% of the population were meagre, resulting in mediocre growth in demand for goods and services companies wanted to sell. The top 1% saw their average after-tax Real incomes go up 275% from 1979 to 2007.

Your friend is admitting that things have gotten better when he says Obama is 'taking the credit'... credit for what ... for the recovery to the Trickle Down Deregulation disaster which started in 2010 and has continued (with the GOP trying - and succeeding to some extent - in sabotaging it) to the present time. But prior to the recovery it was a story of long decline (since the days of Reagan) for the people in the middle (let's say the middle 60%) who are the ones who really provide the fuel (consumer demand) that drives the economy.


Full Report (click on image):
Shares of National Income 1979 2007



Trends in the Distribution of Household Income - after taxes & transfer payments - Between 1979 and 2007 - Summary
(all emphases my own)


From 1979 to 2007, real (inflation-adjusted) average
household income, measured after government transfers
and federal taxes
, grew by 62 percent. During that period,
the evolution of the nation’s economy and the tax and
spending policies of the federal government and state and
local governments had varying effects on households at
different points in the income distribution: Income after
transfers and federal taxes (denoted as after-tax income in
this study) for households at the higher end of the
income scale rose much more rapidly than income for
households in the middle and at the lower end of the
income scale.1 In particular:

For the 1 percent of the population with the highest
income, average real after-tax household income grew
by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007
(see Summary
Figure 1).

 For others in the 20 percent of the population with
the highest income
(those in the 81st through 99th
percentiles), average real after-tax household income
grew by 65 percent over that period
, much faster than
it did for the remaining 80 percent of the population,
but not nearly as fast as for the top 1 percent.

 For the 60 percent of the population in the middle of
the income scale
(the 21st through 80th percentiles),
the growth in average real after-tax household income
was just under 40 percent
.

 For the 20 percent of the population with the lowest
income
, average real after-tax household income was
about 18 percent higher in 2007 than it had been in
1979.


As a result of that uneven income growth, the distribution
of after-tax household income in the United States
was substantially more unequal in 2007 than in 1979:
The share of income accruing to higher-income households
increased, whereas the share accruing to other
households declined. In fact, between 2005 and 2007,
the after-tax income received by the 20 percent of the
population with the highest income exceeded the aftertax
income of the remaining 80 percent.


Growth in Real After-Tax Income from 1979 to 2007



Download Excel file with data from select figures in report


 

Thor_MN

(11,843 posts)
4. Amazing the corelation between GOP policy and the economy turning to crap
Tue Dec 9, 2014, 02:17 AM
Dec 2014

But hey, the way it has worked in the past decades isn't a guarantee that future GOP policy won't similarly turn the economy to crap...

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