(06-01-2019, 10:28 AM)MalabarJag Wrote:

(06-01-2019, 08:55 AM)mikesez Wrote: The President has very little real control over unemployment and inflation.  Trump's actual policy changes have been minimal.  Very little has gotten done in Congress, even when Republicans had both houses.  The only positive he's accomplished is the judge appointments, but even there, he could have done better.  Kavanaugh was a political operative for longer than he was a judge.  There were better, equally conservative, resumes to choose from.

In Trump's case, both the corporate tax cut (congress was needed here) and the elimination of Obama-era regulations have had a significant positive effect on the job market. His trade wars have had a negative effect of the stock markets, but that should be a short term effect. Obama's regulations slowed the recovery, while the negative prime rate (by a presidential appointee) boosted the stock market. So yeah, while the economy mainly controls itself (until the socialists take over and turn the US into Venezuela), the president can have some real control.

people smarter than both of us have analyzed where the money that corporations saved from the tax cut went.
Almost none of it went to payrolls.
Unemployment was already very low.

All I'm saying is that the President's control of the economy today is very small - like a 5 or 10% effect at best.  15% to of 20%  the economy is in the government's hands, however, realistically the President can't touch or change most of that. 80 to 90% of the control of how well the economy does rests with the big banks, the big corporations, and people like you and me who might have new ideas.

Here's the thing: if you want to give the president more credit than just that, you should be consistent about it.
You can say that Reagan or Trump did a good job for this reason,
But then you have to say that Bush 41 did a bad job,
And that Bill Clinton did a good job,
And that Bush 43 also did a bad job,
And that Obama cleaned up his mess.

You have to give the Democratic party a perfect, 100% score for presidents after 1980, and mark down the Republicans with a 50% score at best, if you choose to score presidents based on how the economy does while they are in office.
So I hope you can see that my approach to this question is more sensible.

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