I have largely stayed away from this topic because I don't feel as I have much to add. The only thing that I do know about this topic is that the political games being played get us no closer to the fiscal solutions that we desperately need in order to sustain growth and a healthy economy.
I found the following post below on Stocktwits, a financial site that I follow on a daily basis. The blog author Jerry Khachoyan, is a regular poster on the site.
I couldn't have said this better myself Jerry
And This Is Why I Hate Politics
Tomorrow, the Supreme Court of the United States will rule on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (commonly known as “Obamacare”). The ruling will either determine if the whole law is upheld, if the Individual Mandate is struck down (thus upholding parts of the law), or if the whole law is to be thrown out.
One of the major controversial laws in the bill is the Individual Mandate, which requires basically everyone eligible to buy health insurance. The main reason why this is controversial is because it is forcing Americans to buy a service that is pretty expensive. Now, I’m not here to argue about the constitutionality (Most scholars agree it is constitutional) or the economic impact of this.
I’m here to point out the dumb politics being played by both parties. Let’s get somethign straight, The individual mandate was a market-based Republican idea, developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation and endorsed by the many likes of Bob Dole, George Bush, Newt Gingrich and GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
However, once it was included in Obamacare in 2009, it suddenly turned into a socialist Democratic idea! Now the democrats/liberals support the mandate while the Republicans oppose it. However, I’m not here to only bash the GOP; the Democrats (especially Obama) opposed the idea in 2008! What the hell! As you can see, this has nothing to do with any legitimate economic analysis or on any social-standing (Fairness,etc). This is all politics, whatever gets you the most votes is what you’ll support!
This isn’t only exclusive to the healthcare debate. Remember a few months back, the Republicans were bashing Obama for the high gas prices (as they reached $4). At the same time, the Democrats/Obama were blaming speculators (who I would assume, the republicans wouldn’t bash).
Well now that gas prices have plunged, who gets the blame/credit? Well obviously Obama gets the credit if he deserved the blame back then. And obviously speculators should get the credit as well now that prices are plunging. But of course, that’s not reality, that’s politics and nobody gets the credit (Nobody should get credit/blame, but just pointing out the idiocy). There was ZERO economic analysis done by both sides during the blame game. When prices were high, there was stronger demand, macro supply-disruption worry, and no supply gut, thus higher prices. Now, demand has weakened as global growth is slowing, the macro supply worry has washed away (like it always does, remember the Arab Spring?), and there is a big supply gut. I’m sure there are more factors and I could be slightly off on some of my analysis, but at least there is some basic evidence here to analyze. What do politicians offer? The Blame Game and hopeless promises ($2.50 Gas anyone?).
What should we do about this? As I argued a few days ago, we really need strong fiscal policy in order to achieve high growth and lower unemployment again. The only way we get economically competent politicians who are not playing politics with the economy is to Get Money Out (of politics). Making campaign spending and donations more transparent might help, but wont solve the problem. Voting out all incumbents will only bring in the next batch of incompetent/bought politicians. The only way we can solve our nations woes is to make sure that those controlling the engine of the economy, do not screw it up. And the only way that is possible is to stop this auction commonly known as the US Elections.
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