Elections and the Economy – American Intelligence Test #7

Worried about the economy, concerned about your job, despairing over unemployment; then certainly you know what you need to do in the upcoming elections. At least this would be the conclusion one might reach in listening to the news anchors and political talking heads and wonks. But of course, what is obvious and patently clear to those with common sense and conventional wisdom need not be connected to reality nor demonstrate a modicum of wisdom or a smidgen of sound judgment. So what we have here friends and neighbors is another chance to gauge the vox populi’s intellectual gravitas.

The test format is just five questions plus a bonus question, and in some instances commentary to place a particular context to the question. Following the questions, I provide my answers. However you don’t use my answers as a guide to correctness. Your score is your responsibility to assess. A willingness to deceive yourself, as to the correctness of your answers or beliefs, is just another measure of the actual intelligence being measured. To paraphrase Lincoln:

Some of us can fool ourselves all of the time, and all of us can fool ourselves some of the time, but all of us can not fool ourselves all of the time.

Prepare yourself to be employed in a brief endeavor.

Q 1: Which political party is primarily responsible for the current economic environment?

Democratic Republican Neither Both Other

Context: Your answer should be able to withstand the ‘test of time’, it should encompass governmental actions and decisions over the last twenty, thirty or more years. In essence, it did not take just one or two years to get to where we are.

Q 2: Which political party’s policies and principles are best suited to deal with the current economy and restore the country to a sound prosperity?

Democratic Republican Neither Both Other

Context: Your answer should account for what a given party actual did when they were in power or not and not just what they said they were going to do when they were pandering for you vote.

Q 3: Which governmental action(s) are most likely to solve the problems in our economy?

  A. Tax cuts

  B. Stimulus packages

  C. Infrastructure projects

  D. Federal Deficit reduction

  E. Government spending reductions

  F. Reform Foreign Trade policy

  G. Reform government bureaucracy

Q 4: After the election, how quickly can the government turn the economy around?

  A. Within 1 year

  B. 2 to 3 years

  C. 4 to 5 years

  D. Over 5 years

  E. Never

Q 5: Who has the most power to address and solve the nation’s economic woes?

  A. Presidency – the administration

  B. Congress – the legislative body

  C. You – the public

  D. Financial industry – banking and investment companies

  E. None of the above

Context: The power to control something necessitates the possession of the means to affect change and the ability to enforce adherence.

The Critical Bonus Question: During the upcoming political campaign which of these issues will be most important to your choice of candidate(s)?

  A. Tax cuts

  B. Education

  C. Immigration

  D. Family Values

  E. Jobs Creation

  F. Deficit reduction

  G. None of the above

Ding! Times up. You’re done, and you can now evaluate if you scored high, low or in the middle. For those with an interest, here are my answers.

1: B   Both parties have eagerly created their contributions to the economic policies and structures that have culminated in our current distressed conditions.

2: N   The parties only have policies and principles that they espouse often and loudly, especially during their campaigns; but neither appears to understand that they have to build upon and be held accountable for delivering on those policies and principles for them to even have a chance of mattering. And more importantly, they have to acknowledge and accept responsibility for the failure of their efforts when they have demonstrated that they did not understand or appreciate the consequences of their actions.

3: C,D,F   These activities come the closest to positive initiatives that the government could engage in to help the economy; but these items don’t directly address the underlying factors that cause our economic problems. The other items on the list can help treat the symptoms but are not agents to cure the economy.

4: E   The government can’t actually fix the economy, the best that they can hope to do is to provide stabilizing actions to help contain the extent that the economy goes completely off the rails. So the government can never deliver the turn around, no matter how much time you allow them to stumble around trying.

5: C   The economy is a product of the public’s behavior. “You reap what you sow” comes to mind. To add to those direct responsibilities that you need to own up to, the extent that the government contributes to the solution or the problem is derived from your choices anyway. See Question 1.

Bonus: G    If you haven’t figured it out by now, the items in the list are not solutions. They are just political bait dangled before you to tempt you into swallowing the hook. If your candidate cannot clearly explain how they will implement a policy or program that will address any of those slogan issues and then explain clearly how that will produce a positive effect on the economy then welcome to the cook-out, you will be served up for dinner shortly.

You don’t have to care about this test or your view of my answers. But you are about to take a test that you won’t be able to shrug off, whether you pass it or fail it. The election doesn’t give you as many choices for each question, and it doesn’t give you any latitude in the consequences resulting from your choices. You will get what you asked for; because the reality of the world is that for every action/cause there is a reaction/effect.