John Kerry on the Economy

Senator Kerry has written about his economic policies and plans in the Wall Street Journal. I suggest reading it, as this is an important issue in the campaign, although of secondary importance to me. I admit that I personally am less than pleased with George Bush's performance in this area. Particularly in regards to increases in non-Defense related spending. That being said, I have never felt that a President had much control of the economy. The economy did do well in the Clinton years, and Clinton at the very least deserves credit for not getting in the way of this. The simple fact though is that the last few years of the Clinton presidency were the dot-com bubble. It is called a bubble because the economy was growing in ways that were not sustainable. This means that Clinton's last years the economic numbers were inflated and we suffered a recession in the first Bush years as a result. The bubble was not Clinton's fault, and the recession was not Bush's fault. Because of the timing, it would be very surprising if many key numbers from the end of Clinton's second term were not higher than those at the end of Bush's first term, which is in fact what we are seeing now. I am quite sure that we would be seeing similar economic numbers if Al Gore had won in 2000. That being said, on the face of it, some of John Kerry's ideas do make sense. However, John Kerry does have a record that indicates he trusts governments to handle problems more than people, and that is something I have deep reservations about.