Biden does a double-take

Jun 14, 2009 by Adam C. Powell, Ph.D.

Today, Vice Presiden Biden told Meet the Press, that “everyone guessed wrong” on the impact of the stimulus, and that the economy was worse off than anyone thought. He further implied that the (unmeasurable) number of jobs created or saved would be only be 600,000 by the end of the summer, rather than 3.5 million.

The problem is that not everyone guessed wrong. In fact, many economists guessed right. Because the government did not listen to them, the nation has incurred a substantial debt with far less to show for it than expected. Before the stimulus was passed, the Cato Institute published a letter of economists stating that “we the undersigned do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance.” Signers included the Nobel Laureates in Economics James Buchanan, Edward Prescott, and Vernon Smith.

One of the many problems that our country faces today is a disconnect between politicians and economists. Our politicians have made factually untrue economic statements, and have taken actions that would defy reason to any non-Keynesian. The Japanese crash of the 1980s could serve as a valuable history lesson to the United States, but unfortunately it has not. Rather than reinventing the wheel, it would be nice to see more politicians with backgrounds in business and economics in office. Unfortunately, the country is very anti-business at the moment. Hopefully, we will eventually come to our senses, and realize that there are valuable lessons from the past that we can use to guide ourselves through this crisis.