Divided Government & McCain for President: Liberal (ill)Values Blog makes the case!

There has been considerable discussion about voters who appear to vote against their economic interests. This peaked with the publication of What’s The Matter With Kansas in which Thomas Frank questioned why lower income voters would vote against their economic interests by voting Republican.

Alan Blinder summarizes the differences under Democratic and Republican administrations: "The stark contrast between the whiz-bang Clinton years and the dreary Bush years is familiar because it is so recent. But while it is extreme, it is not atypical. Data for the whole period from 1948 to 2007, during which Republicans occupied the White House for 34 years and Democrats for 26, show average annual growth of real gross national product of 1.64 percent per capita under Republican presidents versus 2.78 percent under Democrats.That 1.14-point difference, if maintained for eight years, would yield 9.33 percent more income per person, which is a lot more than almost anyone can expect from a tax cut."

That paragraph begins with a key point. While the rich do better under Republicans and the poor do significantly better under Democrats, “families at the 95th percentile fared almost as well under Republican presidents as under Democrats (1.90 percent growth per year, versus 2.12 percent), giving them little stake, economically, in election outcomes.”

Since affluent liberals have “little stake” economically in the outcome, we are free to vote Democratic based upon matters such as social issues, civil liberties, and foreign policy.

Even without the data in this article I had realized this was the case. I figure that under Democrats taxes might be a little higher, but this is more than offset by both increased business income and increased returns from the stock market under a the Democrats as compared to the economy under Republicans.

Let's give The Useful Idiot the benefit of the doubt and assume he honestly believes this -- because he probably does, because it's factually true, because, on the surface, it's a compelling argument, but only on the surface.

Donald L. Luskin, on the terrifically and aptly named blog: The Conspiracy to keep you Poor & Stupid digs beneath the surface in his post So Much For This Old Liberal Chestnut:

The claim here is essentially correct. But as with so many statistical claims, its superficiality makes it meaningless, even if strictly correct. Are we to assume, as it would seem, that economic outcomes are due solely to the party affiliation of the president? What about what the presidents actually do . . . Doesn't congress figure into this at all? And are the results supposed to be instantaneous -- is a president responsible for economic outcomes from the very moment he is inaugurated?

For instance, if you lag the per capita GDP results by two years -- not a bad guess of how long it takes policy to show up in output -- the difference between Democratic and Republican presidencies vanishes (both are 2.2%). And if we look at it terms of government control -- that is, party control of both the presidency and both houses of congress -- then the Democrats do worse than the Republicans (2.0% versus 2.1%). But wait! Divided government, when no party controls both the presidency and the congress, does even better: 2.3%!

So the Liberal (ill)Values Blog is really making the case for voting John McCain this fall.

Hummm, Lenin was correct after all -- these idiots are useful!!!

Oh yes, when Ron Chusid The Useful Idiot says of a Democratic controlled government:

I figure that under Democrats taxes might be a little higher, but this is more than offset by both increased business income and increased returns from the stock market under a the Democrats as compared to the economy under Republicans.

well, only an idiot would believe that. To see why voting for McCain-Palin is really voting for Divided Government which is really voting for better economic conditions, check out:

• Give Divided Government a Chance
• A Case for Divided Government
• Would Divided Government Be Better?