Say Anything Blog

That’s what is being suggested in a new book by Larry Bartels entitled Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. He calculates income growth among the rich and the poor going back to 1948 and notices that when a Republican is President income among the rich grows faster than among the poor.  And vice versa for Democrats.

Liberals have been quick to jump on this correlation between Presidential party affiliation and income and declare it as incontrovertible proof that Republicans are out to help the rich and Democrats are out to help the poor.  But I’m not sure that’s fair, as correlation does not necessarily mean causation.

Jonah Goldberg notes that when it comes to economic policy, the Congress has much more influence than the President.  And when we look at who has been in charge of Congress while Republicans have been President since 1948 it’s a fact that Democrats have been in charge more often than Republicans.

By the time George W. Bush’s term ends in 2009 Republicans will have had control of the White House for 36 years since 1948 (Truman was in office from 1945 - 1953) as compared to 25 years for the Democrats.  Of those 36 years Democrats have had control of the House for 28 of them and the Senate for 22 of them.  Meaning most of the time Republicans have been in office Democrats have had a majority in Congress and have exerted much greater control over economic policy.

Of the 25 years Democrats have been in office they’ve enjoyed majorities in both houses of Congress for 23 of them.

In summary: Concluding that Presidential party affiliation has anything to do with income growth among any specific demographics of the American population is just plain bunk.  Not that the liberals, including those in the media, are going to look past the superficial (and politically convenient) conclusions of this study.