Any incumbent politician dependent on voter support wants a strong economy. It?s helpful for re-election.
But as Peter Coy suggests in the new Business Week, economic improvement has its drawbacks for those who want fundamental change of the American economy:
Obama’s team knows that the employment growth in March (a quarter of which was driven by the hiring of federal Census workers) actually makes its mission over the next year or two more difficult.
Here’s why: The positive jobs report reduces the political urgency for fixing the U.S. economy. If voters and lawmakers decide the economy is healing on its own, it becomes harder to justify more infrastructure spending, aid to stressed states, extended unemployment insurance, and the like.
The quotation brings to mind Thomas Woods? recent admonition about the dangers of a government driven continually to ?do something? about our economic woes.
