Blaming the president for unemployment

Megan says bugger off:

The president has very little control over employment in the economy. The stimulus undoubtedly kept the economy from losing even more jobs than he did. But the economy is undergoing a hell of a deep structural adjustment: from debtors to savers, from housing-and-finance led growth to . . . well, if we knew that, the recession would already be over. Those adjustments need to happen, because the previous situation was totally unsustainable. But they definitionally imply higher unemployment and less consumer demand in the short run.

A third stimulus might lower the unemployment rate a little, at least from where it would otherwise be. But it would not put us back at 5% unemployment, and it would have a lot of other costs, including further risking our AAA bond rating. Stimulus is at best an incredibly blunt instrument. And it is made blunter by all of the procedural checks we've accumulated over decades of government growth, not to mention very powerful public sector unions. FDR could tell his government to go out and hire people to paint hallways or build dams. The current president needs Environmental Impact Statements, public review periods, and the okay of ACFSME.

The fact is, most of the time, the best the president can do is avoid making things much worse. And though I have many disagreements with the specifics of Obama's policies, I'd say that largely, he's kept from making stuff worse, and eased the worst of the damage on hurting families. We could be doing more with more generous unemployment benefits or other income assistance, less with atrocious auto bailouts. But the economics of recession is truly a dismal science, and demanding that the president cure the recession is about as effective as expecting him to cure Hep C.

Agreed on all counts.

But this won't stop me from gawking at the laughably rosy scenario Obama's economic team painted to sell the stimulus last February:



Though I suppose reassurance is part of the president's role, so as to avert greater panic. Don't worry people, everything is gonna be just fine!