Obamanomics | AEIdeas

Saturday, May 25, 2013

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European-style austerity: Obama’s new ‘balanced’ debt plan is 73% tax hikes

James Pethokoukis | November 14, 2012, 10:57 am

President Obama’s opening bid in budget talks with congressional Republicans is a reheating of his 80-page deficit reduction package from September 2011. The president calls it a “balanced” plan. Well, here it is: Now, according to Obama’s math, his “balanced” … read more >

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Pethokoukis

How Big Bird is like cigarettes

James Pethokoukis | October 15, 2012, 12:10 pm

Much of the Obama economic agenda strikes me as terribly backward looking. Keynesian tinkering. High-speed rail. Reregulation. And now public television. It’s like the president’s policy clock stopped right around 1977. Here’s Michael Barone: When a politician is in trouble, … read more >

Pethokoukis

Study: Obama’s big budget deficits could mean a $4,000 a year middle-class tax hike

James Pethokoukis | October 2, 2012, 11:32 am

President Obama doesn’t think Americans should fret about the exploding national debt. As he told talk show host David Letterman recently, “We don’t have to worry about it short term. Right now interest rates are low because people still consider … read more >

Pethokoukis

Bill Clinton is wrong. Barack Obama is wrong. This economy could be so much better

James Pethokoukis | September 28, 2012, 12:23 pm

“No president — no president, not me, not any of my predecessors, no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years.” – Bill Clinton, 2012 Democratic National Convention. First things first: It’s unclear … read more >

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Is America better off because Obama won 4 years ago?

James Pethokoukis | September 24, 2012, 12:22 pm

Are political pundits focusing on the wrong question? They might be, and that could explain why polls show Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney — despite the horrific economy. Maybe Ronald Reagan’s famous “Are you better off than you were four … read more >

Pethokoukis

Falling incomes: The chart that shows it’s not getting better

James Pethokoukis | September 12, 2012, 12:53 pm

From the U.S. Census Bureau: 1. Median household income was $50,054 in 2011, a 1.5 percent decline in real terms from 2010 . This was the second consecutive annual decline in household income. 2. Median family household income declined by … read more >

Pethokoukis

A big (and updated) version of the biggest, most important chart in American politics

James Pethokoukis | September 8, 2012, 12:20 pm

Here is an embiggened version of the infamous jobs chart prepared by Obama administration economists Jared Bernstein and Christina Romer back in January 2009 (and now updated again by me with data from the August jobs report). You know, the … read more >

Pethokoukis

Chart: How slow has the jobs recovery been? Really, really slow

James Pethokoukis | September 8, 2012, 10:22 am

Again, Bill Clinton at the Democratic National Convention: In the last 29 months, our economy has produced about 4.5 million private-sector jobs. Well, is that a lot or a little? How does that compare to previous recoveries? Well, the Republicans … read more >

Economics, Pethokoukis

The awful, awful August jobs report

James Pethokoukis | September 7, 2012, 9:28 am

This was not the employment report either American workers or the Obama campaign were hoping for. A huge miss. It shows the U.S. labor market remains in a deep depression, generating few jobs and little if no income growth. As … read more >

Pethokoukis

Again, which Bush policies caused the Great Recession? And which of Obama’s ended it?

James Pethokoukis | September 4, 2012, 6:42 pm

Democratic National Convention – Charlotte, North Caorlina The narrative I am hearing at the DNC is that President Bush’s policies caused the Great Recession, and President Obama’s policies ended it and launched a strong recovery. Thus the Obama slogan, “Forward.” … read more >