Who Cares What the Chamber of Commerce Thinks?
Traditionally, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has had clout not just because it has a lot of money, but also because it seems like the collective voice of American business is something you should take seriously when considering issues of economic management. But as Daniel Gross observes, we tried it their way and the results sucked:
The Chamber of Commerce may not have ruled the country during the Bush years. But it had the next best thing: a Republican administration in the White House and Republican control of Congress for most of that period. [...] These policies, the Bush administration economic team promised us, would be superior to the ones that prevailed in the 1990s. And the proof would be in the numbers: jobs, market performance, income, wealth.
But it didn’t work out for anybody. By pretty much any measure, the years from 2001 to 2008 were lost ones. Job creation was extraordinarily weak by historical comparison. In September, on a seasonally adjusted basis there were 108.544 million private (nongovernment) payroll jobs, which is about the same number there were in June 1999. (To see the data, go here and then check “nonfarm private.”) 10 ten years, in other words, the private sector hasn’t created a single job. That’s pathetic, especially when you consider that the population grew 9 percent during those years, from 282 million in 2000 to 308 million today.
Or in chart form:
But though the Chamber-friendly Bush years were much worse economically than the Clinton years, the Bush years were pretty nice for the after tax income of well-compensated CEOs.
23 Responses to “Who Cares What the Chamber of Commerce Thinks?”
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October 28th, 2009 at 9:25 am
Looking at the poverty chart, you get to wonder what “recovery” even means these days: does it refer to bank repossessed houses?
October 28th, 2009 at 9:36 am
It’s probably better to delegitimize them by pointing out that they do NOT, in fact, speak with the collective voice of American business– rather than arguing that business doesn’t know what’s good for it.
October 28th, 2009 at 9:52 am
You know, my business is too small for the Chamber to consider me as a business. I make less than a million a year, so I’m just a peon. But when your fat ass needs back surgery, you might consider the fact that the implant you’re getting was designed by a peon like me. Think my business is irrelevant now? You also might consider the concept that I can’t get the surgery that I designed because I can’t get insurance. Although I guess I could come with the $100K, but that would really mess with my finances. Enough so, that I wouldn’t be designing your next product. Hope you don’t want new health care products designed, because I’m shutting my business down to get health insurance. I need to get a job with a group insurance plan that doesn’t ask questions. And the only good plans are with huge companies that don’t innovate. So, I won’t be innovating anymore. And you won’t get the new medical technology. I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not. You’ll be sorry, not me.
October 28th, 2009 at 9:58 am
We complain when the right makes bogus claims about global cooling by measuring temperatures since 1998 (an anomalously hot year). It seems fair to require the same intellectual honesty from our camp. If you look at that chart it seems like ‘99 and ‘00 were both pretty unusual height-of-bubble years. It would be nice to blame the ‘01 plunge on Bush, but the more likely culprit is a combination of the end of the bubble combined with 9/11.
That said, I think the basic premise here is correct. I’d just like to see the observation made properly. What if you smooth out the 90s bubble a bit? And how about using some numbers that go back to say, the beginning of Clinton’s term?
October 28th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Matt is only 12 years old, so of course he doesn’t remember that Clinton was first elected in ‘92, and that his cute little charts leave out Clinton’s first term. If you think poverty rates in the Bush years were bad, wait til you see the first term of the Clinton years!
Gross is a fucking moron. He says things like, “interest rates were low” and suggests that this was a Bush administration policy favored by the Chamber. But, if anything, it was the favorable result of Bush administration policy, not a Bush administration policy itself. That this not-subtle distinction is apparently lost on Gross really is amazing. And this stuff about job creation is equally ignorant. What did Gross expect job creation in a time of low unemployment to look like? Did he expect job creation to outstrip population growth forever? (Someone should teach him a little math.) And the stuff about regulation is just the most ignorant imaginable. The regulatory burden grew during the Bush years, despite what the Bush administration and Gross both would like people to believe.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:02 am
fostert, no worries, we’re done with innovation anyway. If you thought you could get both a free lunch and get rich off providing a free lunch to others, well, sorry to wake you up.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Matt is only 12 years old, so of course he doesn’t remember that Clinton was first elected in ‘92, and that his cute little charts leave out Clinton’s first term. If you think poverty rates in the Bush years were bad, wait til you see the first term of the Clinton years!
So poverty rates fell during Clinton’s presidency, and Matt is trying to hide it? OK…
October 28th, 2009 at 10:23 am
we tried it their way and the results sucked:
Well, we are trying the Democrats’ way, and the result suck even worse. After all, President Bush never had a 9.8% unemployment rate like Obama and the Democrats do.
Clearly, if you want to compare Reepublican rule to Democrats, the Bush economy beats the Obama economy in every possible measure.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:23 am
When the industrial economy of the UK went on a massive decline from 1890 onwards (and continuing to this day), there were (and indeed, still are) plenty of business-dominated organizations in the UK that will rabidly insist that they have always been right, even when the organization is something like an organization of ship-builders, and the last ship that was built in the UK was completed in the 1980s.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Why oh why, yeah, use trends when absolute numbers are bad, and just absolute numbers when trends are bad. Geez, I only wish I could be so clever.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Someone should write a book or a screenplay about a young wizard who manages to slash taxes on the rich, run up a huge deficit, and foment the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Commerce.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:32 am
What’s great about Thomas is that he makes Al seem refreshingly honest and intelligent.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:42 am
People worry that the next decade might be a “lost decade”. Job growth may be weak over the next decade but that growth will at least be real. It was the last decade, with all of that illusorily job and economic “growth” that was the lost decade.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:01 am
He says things like, “interest rates were low” and suggests that this was a Bush administration policy favored by the Chamber. But, if anything, it was the favorable result of Bush administration policy, not a Bush administration policy itself.
Uh, no. Interest rates did not “stay low as a favorable result of Bush administration policy,” because interest rates are not set by the free market in the same sense as stock prices. Interest rates are set in response to decisions made by central banks. Market pressures and deficit spending should have begun to drive up interest rates during the recovery, but this didn’t happen because of decisions made by the Fed.
I agree that it is inaccurate to blame the low interest rates of the ’00s directly on the Bush Administration. The blame mostly lies with Alan Greenspan, a Republican-appointed central banker who openly expressed a libertarian philosophy, and who was popular with economic conservatives in both parties. Criticizing Fed Policy in the Bush years is perfectly consistent with criticizing the economic philosophy advocated by the Chamber of Commerce.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Alan Greenspan, a Republican-appointed central banker
He was appointed by both a Republicans and a Democrat.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:28 am
“He was appointed by both a Republicans and a Democrat.”
True. And like I said, he was popular with economic conservatives in both parties. The Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party shares a significant amount of blame.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Al likes to hit the Pause button during Roadrunner cartoons, just as Wile E. Coyote runs off the cliff.
“See? The coyote’s doing awesome!”
October 28th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Sadly for you, Thomas, Bush’s record on poverty rates sucks both in absolute numbers and trends.
October 28th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
[...] Matthey Yglesias combined the Slate piece with the following chart from J. Bradford DeLong’s Grasping Reality with All Eight Tentacles that shows the freaking hole we are trying to dig out of. Conversely, if keep on listening to the Republicans, we might dig our way to China [...]
October 28th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Thomas Says:
“Matt is only 12 years old, so of course he doesn’t remember that Clinton was first elected in ‘92, and that his cute little charts leave out Clinton’s first term. If you think poverty rates in the Bush years were bad, wait til you see the first term of the Clinton years! ”
Causality just ain’t your strong suite, is it now?
October 28th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
What you liberal moonbats don’t understand is that while poverty started out low under Jesus W. Bush and then became high, poverty started out high under Bill Clinton and then became low.
Advantage Bush, you sorry little Obamabots.
Wolverines!
October 28th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
fostert, no worries, we’re done with innovation anyway. If you thought you could get both a free lunch and get rich off providing a free lunch to others, well, sorry to wake you up.
So you’re not only a complete idiot, but you’re also an asshole?
Did you have to practice hard to achieve this, or is it just something that comes naturally?
October 29th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Re: Clearly, if you want to compare Reepublican rule to Democrats, the Bush economy beats the Obama economy in every possible measure.
By that standard can you also agree that the Reagan economy of 1981 was much worse than the Carter economy?