President Barack Obama’s approval rating is rising as more Americans feel optimistic about the economy, according to a CNN/ORC poll released today (Tuesday).
For the first time since May 2013, more Americans believe Obama is doing a good job (48 percent) than think he is not (47 percent), according to the survey.
Fueling the president’s rise in the poll are the positive sentiments Americans have about the current and future state of the economy. [reported at Newsmax.com 4/21/15]
These polls, and their conclusions, are interesting. They always assume that the President somehow has absolute control over the economy. In the abstract, most people would probably not agree with the statement, “The President has absolute control over the economy.” But the conclusions that most draw from these polls suggest that they do.
These polls have credibility because they are assumed to be scientific. In science, a crucially important principle is the idea that “correlation is not causation.” In practical terms, this means: Just because two things occur at the same time does not mean that one caused the other.
In other words, just because people perceive their economic conditions as improving does not mean that Obama’s policies are the cause of those improvements. In fact, it’s just as possible (more so, I would argue) that economic improvements have occurred in spite of Obama’s policies, not because of them.
In the last few years, Congress has increasingly been dominated and controlled by Republicans. While it’s unclear to most of us what Republicans actually stand for (aside from opposition to abortion and gay marriage), it’s fair to say, on the whole, that Republicans oppose many of Obama’s economic policies. If correlation is causation, then couldn’t we argue that Republican policies in Congress — of perhaps applying a few brakes to Obama’s unfettered socialism — are just as responsible for economic improvements? Given that the overwhelming majority, in other polls, look unfavorably on Congress, it’s unlikely the question would even occur to most people. And pollsters, for whatever reasons, would surely never ask the question.
The CNN/ORC survey echoes the positive feelings toward the economy found in a recent Gallup poll.
According to the Gallup survey released on April 17, the view of Americans about their own finances was at the highest point since 2004.
More than half of those polled (52 percent) believe their financial situation is “getting better,” while just one-third of Americans feel their finances are “getting worse.”
Gallup analyst Art Swift attributed the positive trend to low gas prices, which is putting more money into American consumers’ pockets.
The price of gas matters to most middle income or lower income Americans. It stands to reason that the single biggest factor leading to this shift in attitudes about the condition of the economy is the lower cost of gas. Billionaire and millionaire Obama supporters — who never notice the price of gas — will be quick to credit Obama’s policies such as Obamacare, high taxes and greater regulation of the economy for his growing popularity. But in doing so, they project onto middle or lower income earners their own indifference to the price of gas.
Did Obama single-handedly cause the lower cost of gas? He and his supporters are probably happy to take the credit. But Obama, Hillary Clinton and similarly-minded people are the first to condemn and thrash the “evil oil companies” for making profit “on the backs of working class people.” Clearly, in these attacks, such people recognize that oil and gas are for-profit industries not totally controlled by the government, much less the President alone. So why should Obama get credit for what ultimately is determined by (current) supply-and-demand variables and ratios?
The fact that most Americans appear to assume the President has more power over the economy than he really does illustrates why it’s impossible to move the country in a free market direction (leaving aside that the Republicans provide virtually no leadership in doing so). When things go better in the economy, people are quick to conclude that government is “somehow doing something” to make it that way. When things go wrong in the economy, people are quick to conclude that, “it must be something the government did wrong, most likely too little regulation [with regulation never specifically defined.]”
This is the narrative that those who seek to maintain and continuously expand government control over the economy depend upon, and sell quite well. It probably explains why in the last presidential election of 2012, for the first time that I can ever recall, a President was not held accountable for the economy doing poorly. If the free market is essentially to blame for everything that goes wrong, and the government gets the credit for all that goes well, then this plays into the narrative of maintaining and expanding all the government subsidies, programs and controls that we have.
Most people tend to concern themselves only with “what works.” The economy seems better than it did when Obama came into office. End of story. Bring on Hillary or the Republican equivalent of socialism (Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Mitt Romney, et al.)
But what about the questions never asked? For example:
Did the economy prosper less, or more, than it otherwise would have because of the increased taxation, Obamacare, Obama’s executive orders from the EPA, and so forth?
What about the longer term impact of these policies — five years or more?
Is the fact that economic stability is so dependent on the cost of gas an indication of fundamental economic health, or fundamental economic trouble?
What did we actually learn from the government policies that created the real estate bubble of the early 2000s? Have we intensified and repeated those policies, risking another bubble in real estate, or perhaps an equivalent or worse bubble in health care, or higher education? Was the previous bubble 100 percent George W. Bush’s fault? If so, then how can Obama’s reinforcement and expansion of those government regulatory policies reassure us?
What about the spiraling national debt? Obama correctly raised concerns about it when he first ran for office. Now the debt is much higher after his term in office. Why has the concern about the debt evaporated? What could it mean, for example, for the stability and strength of the U.S. dollar, the government-manipulated currency upon which the entire economy, and our massive government expenditures, depend?
Have Obama’s policies contributed to the lower price of gas — prices which escalated under those same policies in the first five years of his term? Why did the same policies lead to higher prices in one case, and lower prices in another — assuming his policies are directly responsible? Could Obama’s steadfast opposition to oil drilling in or near the United States cause prices to be higher than they otherwise would be, even if more recently they happened to drop?
There are so many questions people will never be asked in polls, and will never be asked to consider. It seems that whenever something goes wrong, the free market and the human incentives towards growth and self-responsibility created by the profit motive will generally get the blame. And whenever anything goes right, those least responsible for, or involved with, the creation of wealth — i.e., politicians — will get the credit.
It’s truly amazing, and terribly sad. Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance will get us in a lot more trouble, because we’ll keep making the same mistakes over and over again. And when the results of those mistakes become clear, we’ll continue to blame the wrong people, the wrong policies and the wrong ideas.
Economically, America is dosing itself with heroin and claiming it’s penicillin. No polls or perceptions can change this fact.
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