Brand X wrote:Quote:I just don't think Gore wouldn't have lost as many jobs as Bush has.
Interesting thought, would you please explain? Thanks.
The explanation is that this was a mindo. I
do think Gore wouldn't have lost as many jobs as Bush has. And the explanation for
that is that I expect he wouldn't have spent $300 billion a year on permanent tax cuts focused on the richest decile of the income distribution. Instead, he would have spent a somewhat smaller amount of money on temporary financial relief for the states, extending unemployment benefits, and maybe throw in a few tax cuts for middle class and poor people, who would have been likely to spend it. That's what liberal academic economists would have prescribed. Bob Rubin and Lawrence Summers, who designed most of Clinton's economic policy, were such economists. My best guess is that a president Gore would have held on to them, or at least their policies.
Why would such a program have produced less unemployment than George Bush's tax cuts? Because the 2001 recession was caused by a demand side problem, not a supply side problem. On the supply side, productivity kept growing at the same accelerated pace which it had been growing at since the mid 90s. The problem was that too few people bought the fruits of their increased productivity, causing the sustained productivity boom to result in reduced employment instead of increased output.
The best case that can be made for George Bush's kind of supply-side tax cuts is that they increase productivity, which was growing just fine in 2001 and after. The best case that can be made for the kind of policy liberal academics that it would have increased aggregate demand, which
was a a constraint to GDP growth in 2001.
And that's why I believe a president Gore would have lost
some jobs during the recession, but not as many as President Bush did.
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