Monday, January 24, 2011

Liberals and Economic Growth | Mother Jones

This is a pretty good assessment which seeks to differentiate the economy as a whole from its many components and interest groups:
I agree that liberals ought to do a better job of persuading the electorate that liberal policies are friendly toward economic growth, but it's worth a pause to say that even if we do this successfully it won't affect the business community's view of us at all. Despite what they say, business executives don't care much about economic growth. They should, but they don't. What they care about is low taxes, light regulations, firm anti-union policies, robust corporate profits, and a sense that the bureaucracy of the government is sympathetic to their needs. Liberals are just never going to give them that other than narrowly and briefly (as with financial deregulation, for example, which was great for the Democratic Party but turned out to be not so great for the economy).