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Nathaniel
Shockey
Read Nathaniel's bio and previous columns
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November 17, 2008
You Elected Obama
Because You Blamed Bush, Huh? Let’s Talk About That
Beyond the obvious demographics that voted overwhelmingly for Barack
Obama, there is still debate over why he got elected.
Some blame the combination of Sarah Palin and John McCain’s age. But
most exit polls reflect that voters affected by Palin split in a
relatively even manner, with pro-Republican voters actually having a
slight edge. And of course there are still some who site the Iraq War,
even though practically every poll suggests that Americans would trust
McCain with our national defense more than Obama. Then there are the
issues of education, health care, energy and immigration. But most polls
showed that these issues didn’t even crack the top three most important
issues of the 2008 election.
What was the most important? The economy, of course.
Any numbskull ought to realize that the advantage McCain had after the
Republican National Convention quickly vaporized right around the exact
second the housing bubble officially burst and the stock market began
gaining or losing (but mostly losing) double digit percentages within
mere days.
Assuming we’ve all recognized that the economy’s sharp downturn was the
number one reason Obama is president-elect and McCain is accepting kudos
for a downright laudable concession speech, let’s make sure we
understand what this suggests:
1. Many people blame George W. Bush for the struggling
economy.
2. These people think that McCain’s ideas and policies would
not be a significant departure from Bush’s.
Concerning the first, Bush had been president for nearly eight years
before the economy took its officially sharp decline in September, which
came after many months of talk about a recession. And throughout most of
his presidency, both the Senate and the House of Representatives
featured Republican majorities. Who wouldn’t blame Bush and his
floundering league of 21st Century Republicans?
And concerning the second deduction, McCain is not going to be
president, so whether or not America was correct to recognize that his
economic ideas were pretty much the same as those of Bush (which I think
is true), is quite irrelevant at this point.
The point is that America’s logic is undeniable. But it’s not a platform
without rot.
First, during Bush’s two terms, we saw consistent and substantial
economic growth and some of the lowest unemployment this country has had
in several decades, despite the events of 9/11 and the wars that
resulted. To consider the trials of the last two months as the ultimate
culmination of eight years of failed economic policies would suggest
that we have short memories and limited powers of reasoning.
Second, we tend to give way too much credit to our government when
things go well and way too little credit to our government when things
go poorly. To blame Bush’s policies over eight years primarily for the
last two months would be like crediting Calvin Coolidge for being
president at the same time Henry Ford sold his 15 millionth Model T.
It’s like thanking Bill Clinton for the Internet boom, or Rutherford B.
Hayes for the light bulb.
Anyone who cares to understand this crisis even a little bit realizes
that there is plenty of blame to go around. The ones we ought to blame
first are ourselves, if we’ve ever purchased anything on credit that we
weren’t absolutely certain we could afford. Bush didn’t pull the trigger
on your bad decisions. And of course, every institution that gave loans
it wasn’t absolutely sure would be repaid deserves to go under. And then
there are the government officials who passed legislation that pressured
banks to give home loans to iffy buyers. That obviously didn’t help much
either, but the point is that sometimes the government plays a much
smaller role in the general health of our country than we think.
And third, Bush is not our only elected government official. While the
government’s role is smaller than we might think (and ought to be even
smaller than that), it obviously does matter. Let’s not forget that Bush
doesn’t just sit in the Oval Office writing down his financial ideas and
signing them into law. Feel free to blame the senators and
representatives, too. We did a good job of this when we replaced a bunch
of (R)’s with (D)’s in 2006. But oddly enough, the year when gas prices
skyrocketed and the stock market crumbled coincided with yet another
election in which we replaced more (R)’s with more (D)’s. Our economy
took its biggest stumble at the same time our Congress had the lowest
approval rating in history. Let’s be careful that we don’t
disproportionately heap government blame on one guy.
The decisions we made two weeks ago were understandable. But that
doesn’t make them good. We’d better seriously rethink what constitutes
good economic policy now that we’ve handed the keys over to such a large
number of newcomers.
© 2008
North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.
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