On Friday, I pointed out that the good jobs report for April seemed unlikely to turn voters’ negative views of Bush’s economic management around. Here’s some more evidence supporting that judgement.
First, note that both the new ARG poll and the new AP poll have Bush’s approval rating on the economy down to the lowest levels recorded by these polls (38 percent and 43 percent, respectively). Guess voters haven’t yet absorbed the good news about how the economy is “strong and getting stronger” and about how “tax relief is working”.
And here’s a result from the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that crisply captures voters’ current economic pessimism and the difficulties Bush is going to have turning that pessimism around. By 2:1 (60/31) voters agree that “On the basis of what I see for the future, the signs point to an economy that is going to be in trouble–jobs are moving overseas, the budget deficit is growing, and too many jobs do not have health insurance or pensions.”, rather than “On the basis of what I see for the future, the signs point to an economy that is going to be strong–jobs are being created, inflation is low, and the stock market is up”.
Clearly, voters’ economic pessimism is deeply-rooted in a wide range of economic problems that have uniformly gotten worse on Bush’s watch. And it’s not likely to go away because we’ve finally got some good monthly job numbers. In the immortal words of Ricky Ricardo, he’s still “got a lot of ‘splainin’ to do”.
TDS Strategy Memos
Latest Research from:
Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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February 6: Democrats Have Wised Up and Stopped Trying to Cooperate With Trump
This has been quite the chaotic week or so, and one of the byproducts of the nihilistic conduct being displayed by Donald Trump and his allies has been a decided end of Democratic cooperation, and I welcomed that development at New York:
Following the time-honored ritual of giving a new president a “honeymoon,” a good number of prominent Democrats made friendly noises about their nemesis after Donald Trump’s November election victory. Some, like Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman, seemed inclined to cross the partisan barricades whenever possible, praising Trump’s dubious Cabinet nominations, calling on Joe Biden to pardon Trump to get rid of his hush-money conviction, and even joining Truth Social. Others, notably Bernie Sanders, talked of selective cooperation on issues where MAGA Republicans at least feigned anti-corporate “populism.” Still others, including some Democratic governors, hoped to cut deals on issues like immigration to mitigate the damage of Trump’s agenda. And one congressional Democrat, the normally very progressive Ro Khanna, promoted cooperation with Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative, at least with respect to Defense spending.
This made some sense at the time. After all, Democrats, having lost control of both Congress and the White House, didn’t have much power of their own, and there was always the chance that having achieved his improbable comeback, Trump would calm down and try to become a normal chief executive in his final term in the job.
Now it is extremely clear that is not the case. The past chaotic week or so has convinced most Democrats that Trump has zero interest in compromise, bipartisanship, or even adherence to the law and to the Constitution. Musk and his Geek Kiddie Corps are ravaging agency after agency without the slightest legal authorization; OMB is preparing its own unilateral assault on federal benefits that don’t fit the Project 2025 vision of a radically smaller social safety net; and congressional Republicans are kneeling in abject surrender to whatever the White House wants. Democrats are resigning themselves to the mission of becoming an opposition party, full stop, making as much noise and arousing as much public outrage as they can. They shouldn’t be credited all that much for courage, since the new regime has given them little choice but to dig in and fight like hell.
OMB’s January 27 memo freezing a vast swath of federal programs and benefits, inept and confusing as it was, kicked off the current reign of terror. It reflected (and was likely dictated by) the belief of Trump OMB director nominee Russell Vought that the president can usurp congressional spending powers whenever he deems it necessary or prudent. Yet Congressional Republicans went along without a whimper. House Appropriations Committee chairman Tom Cole, who would have gone nuts had a Democratic president threatened his role so audaciously, said he had “no problem” with the freeze. The federal courts stepped in because OMB’s order was incoherently expressed, but there’s no question the administration will come back with something similar. As a sign of belated alarm over OMB’s direction, Senate Budget Committee Democrats boycotted Vought’s confirmation vote in reaction to this challenge to the constitutional separation of powers. After Republicans gaveled him on through without a whisper of dissent, Senate Democrats held an all-night “talk-a-thon” to recapitulate past and present concerns about Vought, a self-described Christian Nationalist and one of the principal authors of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint for a radically diminished federal government. He will be confirmed by the full Senate anyway.
Musk’s guerrilla warfare on the federal workforce and the programs they administer made the OMB power grab unfolding at about the same time look like a walk in the park. Even as his landing teams of 20-something coders took control of multiple agency IT systems and fired anyone who got in their way, Musk himself was on X making wild charges about the programs he was short-circuiting and all but cackling like a cartoon villain over his unlimited power. When Ro Khanna upbraided him for his lawlessness, he responded as you might expect, tweeting at Khanna: “Don’t be a dick.”
Khanna’s centrist Democratic colleague from Florida, Jared Moskovitz, had actually signed up for service on the DOGE oversight panel Mike Johnson created, despite its clear purpose as an ongoing pep rally for Musk. Now he’s out, as Punchbowl News reports:
“I need to see one of my Republican colleagues in the caucus explain the point of the caucus, because it seems that Elon doesn’t need them, because it seems what Elon is doing is destroying the separation of powers. And I don’t think the DOGE caucus at this moment really has a purpose … Whether I stay in the caucus, I think is questionable. I don’t need to stay in a caucus that’s irrelevant.”
Meanwhile, as all this madness was unfolding from the executive branch and its outlaw agents, congressional Republicans have been laboring through the process of putting together budget legislation to implement whatever portion of Trump’s agenda that wasn’t rammed through by fiat. Democrats are not being consulted at all in these preparations to produce a massive bill (or bills) that is expected to pass on a party-line vote and that cannot be filibustered in the Senate. Because of the immense leverage of the House Freedom Caucus over this legislation, the plans keep shifting in the direction of deeper and deeper domestic spending cuts at levels never discussed before. Per Punchbowl News:
“Speaker Mike Johnson and the House Republican committee chairs initially proposed between $500 billion to $700 billion in spending cuts as part of a massive reconciliation package. Yet conservative GOP hardliners rejected that, saying they wanted more. They’re seeking as much as $2 trillion to $5 trillion in cuts.”
Democrats can’t really do anything other than expose the extent and the effect of such cuts in the forelorn hope that a few House Republicans in particularly vulnerable districts develop their own counter-leverage over the process. But whatever emerges from the GOP discussion will have to be approved by OMB, where Russell Vought will soon be formally in charge. There’s just no path ahead for Democrats other than total war.
They do have their own leverage over two pieces of legislation Trump needs: an appropriations bill to keep government running after the December stopgap spending bill (which Musk nearly torpedoed in an early demonstration of his power) runs out, and a measure increasing the public debt limit. These bills can be filibustered, so Senate Democrats can kill them. There are increasing signs that congressional Democrats may refuse to go along with either one unless Trump puts a leash on Vought and Musk and perhaps even consults the Democratic Party on the budget. If there’s a government shutdown, it couldn’t be too much worse than a government being gutted by DOGE and OMB.
Republicans hope that Trump’s relatively strong popularity (for him, anyway) will keep Democrats from defying him. But they may not be accounting for the 47th president’s erratic character. On any given day, he may do something completely bonkers and deeply unpopular, like, say, suggesting the United States take over Gaza, expel its population, and build a resort development.
Norm?
Norman?
Norman Rogers?
*Warning – Possible Troll Alert*
I think more people need to get off their lazy behinds and really look for a job. The Toledo Blade (Ohio) on Sundays has over 4 full pages of jobs, with more than 1 entirely in the medical field. Of course these jobs take an education and some hard work to get which many people don’t want to do. Why do so many people think they should get paid a great wage for doing nothing? Socialism didn’t work in the Soviet Union and it won’t work here. Our country was based on you get what you work for, not making others give you something you don’t deserve. I have gotten my first raise in 10 years so something must be starting to get fixed from 8 years of depression in jobs.
This just out, from Citizens for Tax Justice, an outstanding nonprofit group that has been monitoring the tax code for progressivity for decades now:
DO FAT CATS PAY LOWER TAX RATES THAN WORKERS?
A May 8 analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, released today by Citizens for Tax Justice, shows that the federal tax code has
become so skewed in favor of investors over workers that personal taxes on earnings are now two-and-a-half times greater than personal taxes on
investment income.
The analysis shows that total federal personal taxes paid on wages now average 23.4 percent, while federal personal taxes on investment income now average only 9.6 percent.
The press release is available on CTJ’s website at
http://www.ctj.org/pdf/earnpr.pdf .
The full ITEP analysis can be found at http://www.itepnet.org/earnan.pdf .
(end of CTJ communication)
Edwards in his two Americas speech worked in this theme about this Administration favoring wealth over work in its tax and other economic policies. Most Americans, based on polling results, already know that this Administration favors the wealthy in its tax policies. And that seems not (yet, anyway) to have coincided with the sort of hue and cry one would have hoped for in light of such an outrageous reality.
I liked Edwards’ frame on this. It is a relatively easy to explain values-based statement which seems to resonate better with a broader portion of the public than others I’ve seen used to get at the same point. It is harder to attack with the class warfare line and lends itself better to putting a human face on this issue.
Frank, it is possible to determine the approximate “value” of the “jobs” being created if you take a look at the full report put out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.tl4.htm.
When you look at the numbers being offered, what you will find is that of those 288K net new “jobs”, 60.1K are in Temporary Help Services and Business Support Services (shorter version: temp jobs) and another 29.8K are in Services to Building and Dwellings (groundskeepers in other words). You will find another 36K in Accomodations and Food Services (about 80% in Food Services and Drinking Places) and another 16.8K in Ambulatory Health Care Services (home health aides in other words). So, just add up these numbers (142.7K total) to see that about 50% of the new positions are in immediately identifiable minimum wage jobs. I haven’t even teased out the other minimum wage jobs contained in the list yet but they can be identified (what percentage of Nursng and Residential Care Facilities positions aren’t minimum wage in your estimation, for example?).
I’ll let you draw your own conclusion about how sustainable Dubya’s growth projections are. Take a look at the BLS report for more detail.
ALERT: John Zogby has placed an article on his website in which he predicts, based on current polling numbers and history, that John Kerry will win the election. His arguments are quite similar to those espoused on this website…
Where are all these new jobs? I am highly educated and skilled, and I’ve been out of work for a year. It’s been ages since I’ve even had an interview.
Is there any way to tell if the new jobs are actually lower paying sector jobs? I smell a rat.
The problem with the Repub/CNBC line about how the economy is improving is that it is based on aggregate statistics. As the public rightly perceives, things aren’t getting be4tter for ordinary people. The tax cuts, while nice sounding in the aggregate, went mostly to 1-2% of the population. New jobs, ok, but no one is saying how much they pay. If they are at Wal-Mart, it isn’t good enough. Corporate profits may be up, but they aren’t being spread around. The public understands that gasoline is going up, interest rates are going up, inflation is going up, wages aren’t going up, and good jobs are still disappearing. As someone upthread said, Bush’s economic policies are succeeding, but the result is bad for 98% of the population.
In my field, information technology, over 900K jobs have been lost since 2001, and since January, 15K have been added.
This is supposed to cheer people up?
Democrats need to understand that, on the economy, Bush has not “failed.” He’s succeeded in what he is trying to do. The only problem is that what he is trying to do, is only really good for about 1% of the population. Bush is trying to shape an economy in which there are tremendous productivity gains, but no wage gains, and guess what we’ve got? Duh!
Perhaps voteres are waking up to the fact that we have embraced an economic policy with the moral equivalence of throwing a huge drunken party complete with booze, dancing girls, and a rented ballroom, then charging it all to our children. . .
Well, probably not.
The most important changes for an optimistic economy are wage growth, control over health care and insurance costs, and secure retirements. Allowing these to be dictated by employers like Bush seems content on doing will only drive more pessimism and insecurity and doubt. The party that wins public support for the economy must raise the federal minimum wage, especially for full time workers, and keep it indexed to price inflation. Sen. Kennedy made this important proposal that should be tacked onto any bill that Republicans use to eviscerate the middle class! Middle class and working class workers can’t pay their bills and mortgages and health care costs, let alone save for retirement of Bush’s ludicrous Health Savings Accounts. Bush is incredibly out of touch and REFUSES to see the error of his ways. Why do Republicans seem to only care about GDP growth, not stagnant wages? about newly unemployed numbers, not those out of work for years and years? Kerry is the only one who understands and aims to help average Americans.
No amount of priveledge can take away the fact that Kerry has the best ideas! And no amount of cowboy antics and acting chumy with voters can take away the fact that Bush’s policies have emasculated most workers who don’t earn, say, $100,000 a year and have only helped the superrich!
The jobs numbers aren’t good according to BushCo’s econ team. An average of 306,00 jobs/month, thanks to tax cuts. At least they outpace population growth again though.
It’ll go away eventually. It lags, of course. I don’t think there’s any doubt at this point that the economy, and particularly the job situation, will be considerably better by this time next year. I used to be afraid that it would improve quickly enough to help Bush, but I’m nearly positive that there’s not enough time at this point. Thank god.
I suspect that SSJPabs is correct about a time lag. Especially given the competing news this week.
I think the key indicator of the economy for most people is “when do I expect my next raise, and how big will it be?” And right now, I now a _lot_ of people for whom that indicator is very negative. Anecdotally, nearly everyone I talk to (including, unfortunately, my own employees) is clear that there will be no raises this year, and unless things change radically, next years’ are likely to be small, too.
This contrasts very, very clearly with memories of the second half of the nineties, where raises (and even bonuses, remember those?) were regular and decently-sized, if not better.
From my reading, no matter what the numbers, the one major thing this recovery has not produced, and doesn’t seem likely to produce, is any real wage growth any time soon.
So for most people, the recovery is not real on a personal level. Everyone is happy that there isn’t any inflation (unless you’re trying to buy a first house), but there certainly isn’t any sense of hope that things are getting any better.
Well I suppose it took a lot of time for the lack of jobs to really impact the public perception on economics, it might take a while for that to be too.
I’m too close to these things, too informed. I honestly admit that I have little in common with the average public in reactions to these numbers.