Monday, November 08, 2010

Things look better already. A GOP Victory Dividend?


One of the immediate economic benefits of the Republican resurgence is the shift from pessimism to optimism –- or at least less pessimism. Consumer and business optimism is, to some extent, a self-fulfilling prophesy. Purchasing, investing, hiring, producing are all risk-based decisions – relying heavily on the perception of the future.

With Republicans in a position to – at minimum – block the most egregious, growth-retarding policies, both consumers and producers will open their wallets – the former to spend and the latter to produce.

The rate and level of economic recovery will take a little more than first impressions, however. If this were a poker game, I would say that the American public matched the bet on the first round of seven-card stud. Now they want to see more of the faced up cards.

Right now, the game is to the advantage of the Republicans. They will argue, with some legitimacy, that any economic improvements coming down the pike were due to their being put into the game. They will claim that without the GOP resurgence, the Obama administration would have continued down the path of economic devastation.

Obama and the Democrats will argue that all future improvements were due to their policies and the results just happened to be delivered after the Republicans arrived in town. That is a much harder argument to make convincingly.

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