Who Is Better For The Economy?

This is a question we are now hearing, and will be hearing much more of once the Democrats finally decide who is going to be their nominee. Like Rush Limbaugh and his Operation Chaos, I could care less who it is. The Republican nominee has already been chosen by the Democrats, so one might suspect, and they would at least be partially correct, that there is some amount delight stemming from revenge as we watch the democratic party self destruct.

Be that as it may, many at this point have crowned Obama as the nominee, so the question of who would be better for the economy is aimed at Obama and McCain. For the point of this commentary, it would not matter much if Clinton was the nominee.

For some time now people have been recirculating a quote from McCain stating that he knows nothing about economics. By the time this circulated down to the average person on the streets, this now means that McCain is an idiot who cannot even add two plus two.

As for Obama, he claims to care about people and wants to provide for them. This translated to the streets as Obama will give you money! This, of course, makes him some sort of economic guru!

Of course both of these conclusions are wrong. McCain is not a genius when it comes to economics, but then, neither is Obama. Obama in fact, has little to no experience in economic matters, except maybe when it comes to use people for personal gain. This does not translate into national economic gain.

But while McCain is not now, nor ever will be an economics major, he at least understands some of the basics. Lower taxes has always translated into economic growth and increased revenues in the government coffers. Allowing more people, including businesses, to keep more of their own money spurs investments that grows the economy. Individuals tend to spend more when they can keep more. This grows the retail and service sectors of the economy. Increases in both of these sectors increases the wholesale sector which in turn spurs growth in manufacturing, all of which grows the transportation sector. This all translates into jobs.

Obama on the other hand, wants to give more, but in order to do so, he has to take more. The only place to take more money is from those who pay taxes. This decreases the money supply, which usually tends to make people like Obama demand more money be put into the economy which always reduces the value of the dollar and creates inflation. Inflation in turn causes people to have to spend more on basic staples of life so they lose confidence in the economy and they stop spending on other goods that they do not really need.

When people stop buying, warehouses back up with goods and the warehouses stop ordering replacement stock. When this happens, manufacturers stop producing and they lay people off. This tends to domino and the economy starts into a downward spiral that is difficult to turn around.

But, Obama cares, and this seems to be all that matters.

So, while neither is really qualified to run an economy, McCain gets the fact that we need to get the government out of the way so people can produce and grow the economy, because after all, the government does a very poor job of this. Just ask Jimmy Carter! McCain also understands that one of the biggest problems we had over the last eight years is that while we had record revenues pouring into the government thanks to the Bush tax cuts, there was also a huge increase in government spending and he knows this must stop.

Now if we could get him to understand that his stance on immigration and global warming will harm the economy much more than all of the earmarks combined, and the economy will do just fine under him, even with a lack of specific economic knowledge!