Every Presidential election cycle this question is posed: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” The implication is that whoever is occupying the Oval Office is the singular cause of how we experience our economic and social environment. While the Presidency does have strong influence in certain aspects of our economy and our society, there is much less impact from a President’s actions than the question implies.
A President does not fund the government. The President proposes a budget. Congress wrangles it out in committee review and ultimately votes to approve the spending bill or not. If approved, the President either signs it or vetoes it. It takes collaboration and compromise between Congress and the President. We saw this process play out as President Biden proposed a spending bill to improve border security and immigration processes. Congress didn’t pass it. So a President does not control the economy directly, but participates in the compromise and legislative process to approve government spending.
Federal spending contributed a little over 23% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2023. That’s a significant portion of our GDP. So if you are going to blame government for the economy, you have to blame the entire federal government, not just the President. The President does appoint certain executive branch officials who have influence, such as the Dept. of Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank. But Biden doesn’t tell Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell what to do. The Federal Reserve Board of Governors collectively vote to take the actions they are empowered to do by law, to fulfill the Board’s charter of balancing control of inflation with full employment. The Federal Reserve doesn’t have many monetary tools to do so, also limited by law. The economy is a regulated system of free enterprise where the choice to buy and sell all manner of goods and services is a decision between buyer and seller, for a price agreed to by both parties. Regulatory frameworks and laws passed by the legislature are intended to protect competitive dynamics and prevent fraud. Two-thirds plus of our economy is driven by consumer behavior, exercising free will to engage in commercial activity. So if you don’t like how the economy is working for you, you can take action to express your free will. You can decide to learn more so you can earn more. You can decide not to accept the price demanded.
A President does not control how we treat each other, although the incumbent’s behavior sets the example for what we as citizens accept as leadership character. The person elected to the Presidency is reflective of the voting public’s sense of civic duty (turning out to vote) coupled with the public’s general character. We elect the person whom we believe best reflects ourselves, i.e., our values, our ethics, our beliefs and our aspirations. In 2016 only 58% of the electorate exercised their right to vote. That means only about 29% of eligible voters determined who was elected to the Presidency. In 2020 the turnout was almost 67%, the highest in a century. As Alexis de Toqueville expressed in his 1835 book, Democracy in America, we get the government we deserve.
If we were a country whose government was not a democratic republic, but rather a dictatorship like Russia, China, North Korea and arguably Hungary, none of this would be true. The dictator could indeed control the factors affecting our economy, our livelihood and our experience of living in society.
This election year question is designed to blame the sitting President’s administration for everything you don’t like about your life, in order to entice you to vote for their replacement candidate. If you knew more about how our government operates, you’d recognize the false correlation for what it is, a deceitful way to gain your vote, betting that you won’t pause to educate yourself on the facts. Be that as it may, voting is still your direct and influential way to affect how government impacts your life and livelihood. Vote on the facts, not the sound bites.