Comment by theropost
19 days ago
I mean, part of this is just math. If a government spends more, it’s literally injecting money into the economy, so of course you get more jobs and growth in the short term. That spending is the jobs. If you tighten spending to cut waste or rebalance the books, growth slows and jobs shrink, but that’s kind of the tradeoff when you’re trying to fix long-term issues.
Over the last few decades, neither party has really cared about deficits anyway. Everyone’s been spending, just at different speeds. The real question isn’t “who creates more jobs,” it’s whether the spending is efficient, sustainable, and actually creates long-term value. Eventually the bills come due, interest costs rise, and priorities shift from growth to just keeping the lights on.
So yeah, Democrats tend to show stronger job numbers, but spending more will almost always do that. Whether it’s good spending is a separate debate. Budget discipline isn’t partisan, it’s just basic economics.
> I mean, part of this is just math. If a government spends more, it’s literally injecting money into the economy, so of course you get more jobs and growth in the short term.
Thats not necessarily true. During Bill Clinton's presidency he cut the deficits and the debt and yet the economy saw very strong job growth.
https://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-und...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobs_created_during_U.S._presi...
And Clinton (mostly Gore as VP) cut the federal civilian workforce by about 20%, while following the both the letter and spirit of the law, and not causing chaos.
I’m not sure how true this is given that both Clinton and Obama cut the deficits and in Obama’s case he did it despite complaints from the left.
Democratic administrations see less spending growth, though. Definitely not more. Look it up.
You're confusing rhetoric with policy.
Fair enough, I didn't dig too deep though here's what I have come up with - I'm sure there are many factors, but it is quite interesting here:
Historically, Democratic and Republican administrations have followed distinct fiscal and economic patterns: Democrats typically oversee deficit reduction and falling unemployment, often achieved by maintaining or increasing the tax burden. Conversely, Republicans typically oversee deficit growth and rising unemployment, largely driven by decreased tax burdens through legislative cuts. Statistically, since 1945, real GDP has grown faster under Democrats (4.3% vs. 2.5%), while modern Democratic presidents (Clinton, Obama, Biden) have all reduced the deficits they inherited, whereas every modern Republican (Reagan through Trump) left office with a larger deficit than when they started
So you'd think tax cuts would create more jobs, less unemployment but it has not. It seems like the opposite, I'm sure there is much more to it.
> you'd think tax cuts would create more jobs, less unemployment
Again, that idea is rhetoric, not policy. In fact no one ever thought this, it's a zero-sum/microeconomic intuition (to wit: that there is only so much money available) that doesn't hold at the macro level.
Economic growth happens naturally via finance. Growing companies and interests that want more money to build stuff just borrow, that's literally what banks are for. No one needs to go the government for a handout to make that happen.
At the extremes, sure. Tax corporate profits at 100% and you'll just train them to offshore. Drop taxation to zero and the government won't be able to repay bonds and kill its own finance spigot. But in the middle, where real governments live? No meaningful effect.
> So you'd think tax cuts would create more jobs
Only if you believe in trickle-down economics, which many people could see was bunk when Reagan first implemented it 40 years ago.
If you think republicans lowered spending I have a bridge to sell. See two Santas strategy.