Mitt Romney’s Economic Adviser Isn’t Giving Very Good Advice
Romney economic advisor Glenn Hubbard apparently has a very short memory.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed making the case for Romney’s economic agenda, Hubbard presents a strikingly ahistorical account of the past few years — not to mention sprinkling in one big questionable assumption. Let’s take a tour of some of the lowlights.
“We are currently in the most anemic economic recovery in the memory of most Americans.”
Does the memory of most Americans go back a decade? If it does, then they can remember a more anemic recovery — at least when it comes to jobs. The post-2001 recovery had the slowest job growth of any postwar recovery. It also had the slowest private sector growth of any postwar recovery. It’s puzzling that Hubbard doesn’t remember this, considering that he was the chair of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors from 2001 to 2003.
Now, the economy did grow faster then than it has now. But that’s because the government grew as much as it did then; it’s shrinking now. Really. So why does this weak recovery feel weaker than that weak recovery? Well, the tech bubble recession was much milder than the housing bubble recession — in other words, we’re in a deeper hole this time around. All else equal, we would expect a better recovery from a worse recession, but all else is not equal. As Harvard professor Kenneth Rogoff has shown with over 800 years of data, recoveries from financial crises are long, slow slogs. It’s doubtful that recycling Bush-era policies will get us out of this ditch faster. It didn’t ten years ago.