Saturday, January 5, 2008

Obama Economic Policy

Here's the web page with Obama's economic program, and here's a PDF version. Here's a transcript and partial video of his main economic policy speech.

Relative to other candidates, Obama's economic policy proposals are thinner on the details. In my view, this is exactly the right approach. Candidates, particularly Democrats, have a tendency to over-specify their economic programs. This is partially a product of pressure from the media for candidates to demonstrate that they are "serious" thinkers. If a candidate is elected, the fine details of the policy he or she proposes will depend on the particular circumstances and negotiations at that point in time, so there's really no point in providing a microscopic level of detail. The major points of campaign policy are all that matters.

Over the next few weeks, we'll go through and critically examine each piece of the economic policy, and ultimately produce a complete annotated version of the economic program. Check back for regular installments in this series.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

I think that if Barack Obama sticks with his promises, than the United States will definitly enjoy having him as a president. They can rely on him, and always know that he'll do the best for us. If he becomes president, and doesnt proceed to each and every one of his promises, then the voters will eventually forget why they voted for him and be disappointed. I know that if i was old enough to be a voter, I would watch every campaign and try to find out practically every detail that Barack Obama has said in all of his speeches to make sure that i was making the right decision. Remember, every vote counts.

Anonymous said...

I'm afraid this is very short-sighted. If you raise taxes on businesses, they will just pass the costs on to the consumer. An example is when the price of gasoline goes up, doesn't the cost of groceries go up? Also, if you raise the cost of healthcare to the employer, they will probably hire fewer workers, because it costs more per employee. Thus, your plan causes more unemployment. This is not stimulating the economy - something that seems to be very important at this time in history. No, this is not a good plan. McCain's plan seems a lot better. And of course, your administrator will remove this blog, too because you are too chicken to let others see the truth! (sigh - how sad!)