So do GOP presidents sign massive spending bills in the years preceding elections? That might explain this.

JS,

In 1993, the congressional Democrats passed a tax increase that was opposed by every Republican. Every Republican, WITHOUT EXCEPTION guaranteed it would lead to America's economic collapse...instead we had the greatest period of prosperity since the sixties.

QED:

Every Republican, without exception, does not understand how goverment policies effect the economy.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Cool stuff.

And just to go meta, that's what the blogosphere is meant for. Real debates. Just think that 10 years ago, that exchange would have either been confined to academic publications or conferences or defined by the whims of a (moronic) TV producer.

Do Republican economic policies make income inequality worse? Or is growing inequality due primarily to wider societal trends, rather than anything the GOP does?

Conservative bloggers have already demolished Krugman's attempt at class warfare.

Link

"What always puzzles me about Paul Krugman and his claims about inequality is why he doesn't seem to realize how silly he sounds when he refuses to acknowledge, and take some pride in the fact, that he is part of that top 1 percent. I find it hard to imagine that Paul Krugman's income in 2004 wasn't above $277,000, between his income from his university, his speaking engagements, his books, his columns, and his investments.

Now, does Paul Krugman think that he was just a tool of the "New Gilded Age" politicos? Does he owe his income gains to the people he despises, those nasty Republicans and that ridiculously centrist Clinton? I'd like to know. I suspect that if you asked him why his income grew to the point where he's in the top 1 percent, he would give some long answer, the shorter version of which is that he's "highly educated" and he's not lazy.

And the salient fact about this explanation is that it is accurate. Krugman's about as highly educated as you can get. He's got plenty of skills and occasionally (though not here) a good argument. People like what he does and he gets paid for it. Good for him. But good for Secretary Paulson as well, since Paul Krugman's own experience supports both parts of Paulson's assertion."

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And just to go meta, that's what the blogosphere is meant for. Real debates. Just think that 10 years ago, that exchange would have either been confined to academic publications or conferences or defined by the whims of a (moronic) TV producer.
Posted by: Fifi on August 22, 2006 at 9:36 PM | PERMALINK

Net Neutrality, bitches!

Al,

Andrew's "refutation" consist entirely of personal attack. It is devoid of factually derived argument. Perhaps that is why you admire it so much. No?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Could this be explained by republicans being elected when the economy is doing better and democrats when it is doing worse?

I suppose it would depend on the exact dates used to determine growth and the party of the president.

Hugh Hewitt interviewed General Abizaid today on Hewitt's radio show. Interesting thoughts on what to do about Iran.

You can read the transcript at Radioblogger.com.

Hugh put up a summary at his web site.

I don't like how what Kevin wrote here. However, a conservative blogger whom no one has heard of has written about this. Since he is conservative and has written about it, he must be write.

Link

You can read them again under the fold.

In case you're feeling nostalgic for tbrosz.

whatever happened to tbrosz?

Larry Bartels consistently produces very smart and very well written stuff. For his work on a different topic, go read his book on the dynamics of presidential nominations. Read it a couple of times to fully appreciate how smart it is (make sure to read all the appendices). Then go read his piece on the role of partisanship in voting. So smart it makes a lot of us want to unplug the keyboard....

So, Kevin, you pick a good source to build from!

Paleez. Everyone knows:

1. That during a Republican presidency:
a. all bad things that happen are the fault of the Dem who preceded him, and
b. all good things are his to claim.

2. That during a Dem presidency:
a. all good things that happen are because of the Republican who preceded him.
b. all bad things are his fault.

I don't know what happened to tbrosz specifically. Joe Schmoe was another person who posted volumes and then stopped posting.

But I had a developing suspicion about tbrosz and Joe Schmoe--that they were RNC Psych-Ops operations, not actual individuals. Think a modern RNC version of "the man who never was." The character of Tom B Rosz--notice that he posts under his real name--was fleshed out with specific "confirmable" facts: He works for NASA. He earned so much last year, and so on. Someone found his picture on line and posted it. If you observed the frequency of his posts you began to wonder when he ever had time to work. In addition, the posts were not consistent in voice and tone. It wasn't a case of spoofing, though, the posts were still claimed to be tbrosz's.

I pointed this out on several threads and was mocked for my paranoia, but he began to post less and less frequently right afterwards. I know it was a coincidence, but, jeez, the coincidence scared me. It was the same MO with Joe Schmoe: People began to wonder, he went away.

Tbrosz grew tired of comments and has taken to emailing me about my posts. We have, um, rather pointed exchanges. But fun, sometimes.

He's not an RNC plant, though.

Hey, we got us a rich, frat boy president who thinks fart jokes are real funny. What have we got to worry about? Who cares if the rich get richer, while the poor suffer?

F-r-raa-a-p-p-pppp....

HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA....

Tbrosz grew tired of comments and has taken to emailing me about my posts.

lucky you!

Kevin Drum: He's not an RNC plant, though.

You naive bloggers - Drum is the real plant!

The posts at Brad Delong's blog, as well as the comments,continue this discussion in much detail. Very interesting.
The income inequality doesn't seem to me to be related to which party is in office,I know it didn't matter to me,but anecdotal evidence is hardly analysis.

As for income inequality, only an idiot, or a lying Republican, would argue that increasing income inequality is due to wider societal trends rather than Republican policies.

Republicans openly advocate that greed is good and government--of, by and for the people--is the problem. They promote tax cuts--which of course favor those who earn more. They want to gut social programs (paid for by the wealthy, but whose benefits flow to the poor. They want to deregulate and remove government oversight from banks and resources.

They can't come right out and say that they are the party of the elite, though. But they can imply it, and socially mobile people will fancy that they can be in the club too. Income inequality--like war--favors Republicans. The super-rich are super-happy and everyone else, their share of the pie declining, become fearful that "tax and spend" Democrats will seize a painful chunk of their income and give it to the undeserving poor.

Kevin Drum: "Tbrosz grew tired of comments...He's not an RNC plant, though."

No kidding? Not an RNC plant? I guess I'm glad to hear that, but man, I hate to live in an age when I have to be so suspicious.

Because if unemployment is low and middle class incomes are growing, then everyone wins. The poor win because a healthy middle class is more likely to support safety net and anti-poverty programs, and the rich win because a healthy middle class drives overall economic growth.

These studies mean absolutely nothing without looking at at least two other factors:

1) The composition of the various Congresses during the relevant parts of the business cycle; and,

2) The composition of the Fed (particularly which party appointed which percentage of central bankers) -- especially, who held the chairmanship.

Tbrosz grew tired of comments and has taken to emailing me about my posts. We have, um, rather pointed exchanges. But fun, sometimes.
He's not an RNC plant, though.
Posted by: Kevin Drum on August 22, 2006 at 10:47 PM | PERMALINK

Oh really?

Did he comment on how SpaceX and SpacePlane are eating RotaryRocket's lunch? I guess it pays to have a working prototype.

poor tdouche

Can I use the same strategy for my annual performance review?

I hope for your sake tbrosz tries harder than he did sometimes in comments.

During times of republican governance, the national mood is towards rewarding merit. Democrats promote socialism, and penalizing the most productive by making them subsidize the least productive. When the nation is deluded enough to vote for the democrat party, it's not surprising other bad decisions follow.

In other words, voters aren't necessarily ignoring economic issues in favor of cultural issues. Rather, Republicans produce great economic growth for all income classes in election years, and that's all that voters remember. They really are voting their pocketbooks.

More evidence:

The Fair model, which is re-run every 4 years, shows a strong relationship between GDP growth during the first 3 quarters of the election year *only* and the share of the vote won by the sitting President.
http://fairmodel.econ.yale.edu/vote2004/index2.htm

Ironically, candidate Jimmy Carter railed against "The Political Business Cycle", where election year booms are followed by post-election busts.

During times of republican governance, the national mood is towards rewarding merit. Democrats promote socialism, and penalizing the most productive by making them subsidize the least productive. When the nation is deluded enough to vote for the democrat party, it's not surprising other bad decisions follow.

Well, it's not Shakespeare, but that quote is evidence that if you give enough monkeys enough typewriters, they will eventually produce something that resembles English. Unfortunately, it has no actual meaning or content, but nowadays, looks are frequently enough for success.

American Hawk gives a pretty good presentation of the Republican mentality: a superabundance of feelgood blohard assertions substitute for factual substantiation.

All id, no analysis. A fascinating post, in a psychological sense.

In econ 101 they gave us a pretty clear idea of the divergence in dem and republican economic performance. Dems tend to stimulate the economy directly with government spending, which has an immediate effect. But it's growth-generating effects tend to wear off over time so the economy levels out.

Republicans tend to use tax cuts as stimulus which take much longer to impact the economy, so they tend to get the benefits later in their adminstration.

If you really want to give a conservative the fingernails on the blackboard treatment, start talking about how Clinton was responsible for economic growth in the '90's. After Reagan and BushI had cleared away the detritus of regulation and reformed the tax structure, Slick Willie came along and hotdogged the results as his achievement. His one indisputable contribution (really two) was to screw up his health care plan so bad he elected the Class of '94 to the Congress, and then curled up in a fetal position (or some other position) while they ran the economy for the rest of his Presidency.

backspace: These studies mean absolutely nothing without looking at at least two other factors...

Obviously correlation isn't causation, but even without a full undestanding of causality, Bartels' paper provides generous food for thought, as the numbers show. And while you're requiring that we include additional items in the causality pot, why not the average caloric intake of the US population, the mean solar constant, the temperature of the aether, or the position of the planets?

GOP: Krugman pretends that the only political and partisan influence on policy affecting inequality is the executive branch.

Krugman says, e.g.:

By the way, Larry Bartels in Princeton's politics department shows that there's a strong correlation between party control of the White House and inequality trends even in the short run... It's kind of a mysterious result, but worth pursuing.

The limitations of the available data make it impossible to tell whether the partisan composition of Congress also has a consequential effect on income inequality. Adding a measure of the average proportion of Democrats in the House and Senate to the regression equations reported in Table 3 suggests that it may; however, the modest variation in the partisan composition of Congress in the post-war period makes the relevant parameter estimates very imprecise...

minion of rove:

What an interesting, delusional take on reality you have. Are you on Xanax, like Laura Bush? Bill Clinton's tax increase in 1993, back to responsible levels where inflows at least equal outflows (which, incidentally, every Republican in Congress voted against), set the stage for eight years of unparalleled economic growth and led to budget surpluses for the first time in 30 years. Meanwhile, the GOP was busy throughout the 1990's, fabricating myths about Clinton's personal wrongdoings, none of which amounted to a popcorn fart, despite $100+ million in taxpayer money wasted on investigations. A strong argument can be made that 9-11 would have never happened, if the 150 FBI agents assigned to Ken Starr to investigate Clinton's sex life had been used to investigate something like, oh, Middle Eastern men taking flying lessons but not wanting to learn to land a plane. Republicans are spectacular wasters of tax dollars on useless things, instead of maybe feeding or housing needy people, aren't they?

As far as health care, I'm sure you know that the insurance industry spent more money to smear "Hillarycare" than has ever been spent on a negative ad campaign in history. So, you paid higher health insurance premiums to ensure that the U.S. remains the only industrialized country whose citizens don't have access to basic, affordable health care. Another brilliant waste of money by so-called conservatives!

Are there any other conservative myths and fables you would like me to explode by shining the light of truth on them?

minion: ...while they ran the economy for the rest of his Presidency.

Except for the dot-com bubble-bust, that was Clinton's doing, right?

And while you're requiring that we include additional items in the causality pot, why not the average caloric intake of the US population, the mean solar constant, the temperature of the aether, or the position of the planets?

Because these other items you cite (caloric intake, etc) are irrelevant, whereas the two governmental power centers I cite are at the very center of economic policy making.

The whole jist of Bartels's contention is that Republican presidents exacerbate income inequality, and that GOP administration are bad for the poor. But obviously it is not the White House alone that determines the policies of the United States government with respect to economic affairs. Indeed, arguably, the White House is only the third most powerful governmental player, behind Congress and the Fed, in directing the economy.

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Rashad: "In econ 101 they gave us a pretty clear idea of the divergence in dem and republican economic performance. Dems tend to stimulate the economy directly with government spending, which has an immediate effect. But it's growth-generating effects tend to wear off over time so the economy levels out."

"Republicans tend to use tax cuts as stimulus which take much longer to impact the economy, so they tend to get the benefits later in their adminstration."

So much dithering about details on this thread! Forget whether the executive or legislative branch has more responsibility for economic policy. Don't get mired in details. Let us apply the criterion of Parsimony to the question of whether or not Republican economic policies produce greater income inequality.

Rashad points out that students in Econ 101 are taught that the different approaches used by each party (direct stimulation vs tax cuts) and the proposed consequences of those policies (short-term growth vs long term growth). I believe this is a gross oversimplification--Republicans also justify tax cuts for short term stimulation and Democrats believe that government spending produces long term growth as well.

The difference between Republicans and Democrats has to do with what they hope to achieve with their economic policies.

The Democrats specifically seek policies that will produce growth that will benefit all Americans. So growth may be tempered to achieve a more equal distribution of benefits, for example, greater income equality. However, Republicans regard concern about income inequality as Commie propaganda. The goal of their policies is maximal growth, capital formation and increased shareholder value. In their book, wealth trickles down from the rich. If the rich are richer, then more trickles of wealth will spill over to the poor: The rising tide will raise all boats. Republicans specifically pursue policies (in the name of growth) that will give capitalists, the wealthy, more wealth.

When confronted with the consequences of their policies by the angry masses, the Republicans tie themselves in knots trying to spin reality: Democrats reap the harvest sown by Republican policies! People buy the Republican line because the electorate assumes that the Republican policies are meant to produce a progressive society, greater income equality, growth and a stronger America. But the parsimonious explanation is that income inequality does shrink under Democratic policies because that is what Democrats want their policies to accomplish and income inequality increases under Republicans as a side effect of their pander to the wealthy approach.

Ask a Republican about income inequality and he or she will look at you cagily, trying to figure out how they can change the subject. It is like asking an oilman how his oil rigs preserve the environment.

From:
Paul Craig Roberts: 'Artificial recovery, real job losses'
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=27414&mode=&order=0

"It is unclear how much longer the world will trade Americans real goods for pieces of paper that the US economy cannot redeem with tradable goods and services.

...

In the US today, government employs 7.7 million more people than does manufacturing. Little wonder we have an $800 billion annual trade deficit when the government sector is larger than the manufacturing sector.

American economists are yet to face up to the fact that offshoring high productivity, high value-added jobs that pay well and replacing them with waitresses and bartenders is a knife in the heart of the US economy. Charles W. McMillion of MBG Information Services reports that compensation is falling behind price rises and that the US economy has been kept afloat by consumers overspending their disposable incomes by drawing down their accumulated assets and going deeper into debt.

McMillion reports that according the Bureau of Economic Affairs, households outspent their disposable incomes by 1.5% in the second quarter of this year, a rate of dissaving equaled only by the depression year of 1933.

McMillion also reports that recent BLS data indicates that 25 states have lost manufacturing jobs year over year and that 25 states have lost jobs in the information sector.

Little wonder that permits for new private housing are down 20.5% year over year and that new housing starts are down 13.3% year over year. What will we do with the millions of illegal Mexicans when construction jobs dry up?

Wage data covering 82% of all private sector jobs show that the purchasing power of weekly wages today is less than it was when the economic recovery began in November 2001.

What kind of economic recovery is it when the purchasing power of wages falls instead of rises?

In my opinion, the recovery was artificial. It was based on extremely low interest rates orchestrated by the Federal Reserve. The low interest rates discouraged saving, but the low rates reduced the mortgage cost of real estate, inflated home prices and encouraged consumers to refinance their homes and to spend the equity."

http://www.sfgate.com/comics/fiore/
Hoax by Mark Fiore

CFShep:

McMillion. Nice name for a financial analyst :)

Bob

has407,

Krugman says, e.g.: ...

I have no idea what you think that quote has to do with my critique of Krugman's statement. Do you have an actual argument to offer?

Moreover, Bartels' states that:
The limitations of the available data make it impossible to tell whether the partisan composition of Congress also has a consequential effect on income inequality. ...

Bartels hasn't even shown that the party holding the executive has a consequential effect on income inequality (correlation is not causation, remember?), so there's no "also" about it.

Could it possibly be that the Executive branch has more influence that conventional wisdom suggests? Maybe.

Yes, and maybe the executive branch has less influence than the conventional wisdom suggests. And what is that conventional wisdom, anyway?

Could it possibly be that policies that promote good government is more important to our social and economic well-being than policies that promote arbitrarily small government? Very likely.

I don't know what "arbitrarily small government" is supposed to mean, or why you think small government and "good government" are necessarily in conflict. You don't seem to have any kind of coherent argument at all.

Wage data covering 82% of all private sector jobs show that the purchasing power of weekly wages today is less than it was when the economic recovery began in November 2001.

Here is the Bureau of Labor Statistic's Employment Cost Index Constant-dollar Historical Listing for 2001 to 2006. As you can see in Table 8, the constant-dollar ECI for wages and salaries for civilian workers increased from 97.7 in June 2001 to 98.5 in June 2006. And for total compensation (wages plus benefits), the ECI increased from 94.5 to 98.5 over the same period, as shown in Table 4.

So civilian workers are better off now than they were in 2001 whether measured by real wages alone, or by real wages and benefits.

Of course, these numbers were calculated using the CPI deflator, which most economists believe overstates inflation, so the true increase in real wages and real benefits since 2001 is likely to be even greater.

Give it up, GOP. Anybody who's been awake for the last forty years knows that President sets all the budget priorities, and the Congress just nibbles around the edges for a slightly bigger piece of pork for their district, or a favorable provision in the tax code for a corporation in their state.

"So civilian workers are better off now than they were in 2001 whether measured by real wages alone, or by real wages and benefits."

And, like a true troll, you pick the height of the recession and work from there. Take your bullshit somehwere else; the regulars on this site are too smart to be fooled by this crap.

brewmn,

Anybody who's been awake for the last forty years knows that President sets all the budget priorities,

No, anybody who has a clue what he's talking about knows that the President sets only his administration's budget priorities. Those priorities may be, and often are, radically different from the budget priorities of the House and Senate. Obviously, this conflict in priorities is especially likely to be present when the executive and legislative branches of government are controlled by different parties, as they were during most of the Reagan presidency, all of the Bush I presidency, and the second half of the Clinton presidency.

brewmn,

And, like a true troll, you pick the height of the recession and work from there.

Like a true moron, you can't even read. I didn't "pick" anything. I compared the most recent month for which figures are available this year with the corresponding month in the year cited in the claim I was responding to, 2001.

And what is the basis for your claim that June 2001 was "the height of the recession," anyway? Do you have any evidence or expert opinion to substantiate this claim, or are you just pulling things out of your ass, as usual?

I have no idea what you think that quote has to do with my critique of Krugman's statement. Do you have an actual argument to offer?

You're a broken record, Don P. Anytime you utter the words "I have no idea..." it is because you've just been exposed for the fraud you love to be.

Krugman's words refuted your idiotic ravings. But, you have "no idea" what it means...