Watch Out For What You Ask For

Don't want to get into politics but I'm getting a bit concerned about the upcoming elections.  Forget Mark Foley, think economics. 

Things are going pretty good unless you live in the alternate universe of always being miserable which seems to appeal a relatively large segment of the population. 

With a nod to George Will's column today here are some highlights--

Bill Clinton stated in a speech in the UK that America is "now outsourcing college education jobs to India."

John Kerry said in 2004 that we had the "worst economy since Herbert Hoover."

Nancy Pelosi vows that if she is Speaker of the House the Democrats "will jump start our economy."

Here's one I heard the other day.  Charlie Rangel said, in effect, that there is not one Bush tax cut that he would vote for.  Which means he would vote for repeal of the tax cuts or just let them expire.

Ouch.  I'm a big fan of the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of economics and I see a bunch of well intended stupid economic "fixes" coming down the line. 

First the facts.

Sorry, Bill, but the unemployment rate among college graduates is 2 PERCENT.  Plus, where does it say that Indian college graduates can't have jobs?

The GDP growth rate since 2003 (date of the Bush tax cuts) has been 3.5%.  That beats the average of the 1980's of 3.1% and the 1990's of 3.3%.

I don't think we need a "jump start."  As Wills points out, jump starts are administered to a stalled vehicle.  The unemployment rate today is 4.6% which is 23% below the forty year, yes forty year, average of 6%. 

An odd thing about low unemployment--economists don't like it .  Below average unemployment leads to inflation because employers have to raise wages to attract canditates and then raise prices to offset the wage increase.  But enough about economics.

As for Charlie Rangel and tax cuts--the tax cuts were widely thought to produce a "cataract of red ink."  Didn't happen.  In 2006 tax revenues as a percentage of GDP is 18.4% or only slightly above the forty year average of 18.2%.  The federal deficit in dollar terms is a record but as a percentage of GDP it is 1.9%.  The average was 2.1% in the 1970s, 3.0 in the 1980s and 2.2% in the 1990s.

And an oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico is projected to increase US reserves by 50%.

Ok, so what?  On economics the Dems make me nervous.  I have yet to hear one (not to say that Republicans all have PhD's in economics) that seems to know anything about the free enterprise system or capitalism.  The vast majority are lawyers and well, you know...

Seriously, the thing that bothers me the most is that these people grew up when I did and capitalism was not big on their agenda.  Also, they think government should do it all.  All government did for me back then was send a draft card which really made me nervous.  For those who don't know what a draft card is, feel lucky.