The marginal product of US Presidents

When I evaluate how good a job my plumber did, I don’t look at how the US is doing.  The same is true of Presidents.

You might argue that Presidents are much more influential than plumbers.  I agree.  My plumber might contribute 1/330,000,000th to the success of America.  The president might be 10 million times more influential.  Maybe 3% of America’s well being is due to the President.  But that leaves 97% due to other factors, including other government officials. Unemployment fell sharply under Obama, whereas it rose sharply under Bush (actually both Bushes).  I doubt you’d find many Republicans that believe this was due to Obama’s superior economic policies.

Almost every day we receive new evidence of the unbelievable incompetence of our current President—by far the worst in US history.  A recent NYT piece written by a high government official argues that Trump is enacting some good policies.  I think he exaggerates the success of Trump’s policies (although I concede the corporate tax cut has likely boosted growth).  But let’s put that debate aside.  Where we both agree is that this success is not a reflection of Trump, rather it’s due to broader trends in government policy.  Indeed according to this official, Trump’s aides spend much of their time trying to stop him from doing crazy things:

But these successes have come despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.

This is one reason why I find theories of a “deep state” to be so amusing.  The people trying to prevent Trump from wrecking the world are precisely the people that he appointed to become high government officials.  If you are a Trumpista, the real problem you should be worried about is the “shallow state”.  Trump’s own appointees.

Those of us who see Trump for what he is should thank people like Gary Cohn, who prevented Trump from tearing up the Korea free trade agreement.  They are the true patriots.

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26 Responses to “The marginal product of US Presidents”

  1. Gravatar of Richard A. Richard A.
    6. September 2018 at 12:24

    Congress has the power to stop Trump from increasing tariffs. Where is congress?

  2. Gravatar of ChacoKevy ChacoKevy
    6. September 2018 at 13:10

    The Gary Cohn anecdote is interesting. It was just last year that Sally Yates was almost universally blasted for not resigning for what was characterized as non-compliance with an EO. To be sure, many are calling the anonymous op-ed author a coward, and those people are consistent. But to my knowledge, I don’t think anyone was calling Yates a patriot (disclosure I don’t read everything so perhaps it happened).

  3. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    6. September 2018 at 13:22

    Richard, Very good question. I’d also ask:

    Where’s our Constitution?

  4. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    6. September 2018 at 13:35

    The people trying to prevent Trump from wrecking the world are precisely the people that he appointed to become high government officials.

    Some of them maybe. But the other officials are surely not more loyal to Trump than the ones he appointed. There’s certainly a deep state that does whatever the deep state wants. And that’s not good for democracy. My father is a high official himself and he always jokes: “We as officials don’t care which politician is serving as President under us.” It’s just a joke but it’s also (partly) true.

    I find this Op Ed worrisome for another reason. The only precise example from the author is that Trump was reluctant to expel many of Putin’s spies as punishment for Putin’s evil poisoning attack.

    Just for the record: I’m all for being extremely hard on Putin. You can’t be too tough on this prick. The more sanctions the better.

    But as I said it’s the only precise example of the author, and he uses it as an example of Trump’s alleged recklessness which is just absurd.

  5. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    6. September 2018 at 15:06

    “If you are a Trumpista, the real problem you should be worried about is the “shallow state”. Trump’s own appointees.”

    This is why I tend to find theories of Trump’s behavior that imply that Trump doesn’t agree with his administration’s own policies to be, at best, unpersuasive, and at worst nuts. Which is why I don’t take Woodward’s book seriously. Of course Trump likes his own policies. They often suck.

  6. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    6. September 2018 at 17:17

    So I work for the elected President of the United States.

    The President believes in a different policy than I believe regarding a trade agreement with another nation, but the president is operating within scope of law and not secretly.

    I steal documents from his desk and surreptitiously move to thwart his policy implementation.

    Egads.

    I realize that macroeconomists have sacralized free-trade, or even trade agreements which purport to be free-trade.

    But is not this going to little bit too far?

  7. Gravatar of mbka mbka
    6. September 2018 at 17:59

    Christian List,

    “There’s certainly a deep state that does whatever the deep state wants. And that’s not good for democracy. ”

    Democracy isn’t a cure-all for the problems posed by powers of government. Democracy is just one way of bringing about the choice of government, and choice of government is completely orthogonal to the question of freedom. Democracy is about “how to choose a government”, Freedom is about “what does government let me do by myself”. So, democracy and freedom are two separate dimensions, and from the ancient world right up to Tocqueville, democracy has had a lot of critics for its tendency to self destruct by voting for tyrants. Democracy also often votes for less freedom, example, nationalists who restrict movement of people and restrict freedom of trade. Totalitarian democracy is a perfectly feasible condition.

    That’s why democracy everywhere needs to be constrained by constitutions and bills of right. Else, pure democracy often wouldn’t give a hoot about rights or the rule of law.

    Trump however, and all the nationalists everywhere, ride on a populist agenda that claims that all is right as long as “the people” (or some kind of majority of them) supports it. Nothing could be further from a libertarian, liberal, or republican (in the universal sense, not the US sense) ideal. People power needs constraints like all power, democracy is just the least problematic of all problematic ways of choosing a government, and the deep state is a buffer, a steadying force of professional administrators that smoothen out the chaotic come-and-go of politics.

    In the old German tradition of the Prussian “Beamtenstaat”, the deep state is meant to preserve freedom and rule of law where despotic rulers and politics try to subvert them. Which is exactly what we see in the US now: the deep state doing its job.

  8. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    6. September 2018 at 19:22

    mbka:

    Yes, civil servants, operating within law, should serve as a bulwark against the politicization of government.

    Rule of written law, in other words.

    Gary Cohn’s actions are deep into a grey zone. He was subverting rule of law, rather than enforcing it.

    I might admire Cohn if he, say, saved 14 Yemeni women from being firebombed to death by US choppers (as happened early in the Trump Administration).

    But a trade agreement?

  9. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    6. September 2018 at 20:18

    Christian, Trump picked Sessions. Now every single day Trump calls him an idiot who is failing to do his job. And yet he doesn’t fire him. Deep state? Is this some kind of joke?

  10. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    6. September 2018 at 20:21

    Ben, You said:

    “but the president is operating within scope of law and not secretly.”

    So then what’s the problem? Did Cohn do anything illegal? Did Trump ask Cohn “where’s the letter on Korea?” If not, why not?

  11. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    6. September 2018 at 21:30

    @ssumner

    You were screaming at the top of your lungs when Trump dared mention the existence of the job report. Shut up about your “did he do anything illegal” non-standerd. By the way, I’m fairly certain that story is nonsense; Trump would have pulled out of the agreement had he wanted to. He’s not a baby.

    https://dailycaller.com/2018/09/04/trump-woodward-credibility-problems/

  12. Gravatar of B Cole B Cole
    6. September 2018 at 22:51

    Scott: that is an interesting question if Gary Cohn operated within the law when surreptitiously removing a key document from the president’s desk, with the motive of thwarting a president’s policy implementation.

    It does not strike me as kosher, or the way a forthright individual should act. Cohn is a Wall Streeter….

    But then, of course, when you get high-end lawyers involved in a case, almost anything can be determined to have been illegal or legal, in retrospect.

    But do we really want to have a White House where a President must guard his desk against pilfering?

    I will not defend Trump’s intellectual capacities. On the other hand, the range of issues before president is so voluminous I can easily imagine any president forgetting about this or that item unless kept on track.

    Cohn does not look good on this one. Somewhat furtive and skunky.

    Suppose Cohn has money tied up in Korean exporters?

  13. Gravatar of Mike Sandifer Mike Sandifer
    7. September 2018 at 03:56

    As many of us have said for some time, Trump is likely suffering from dementia.

  14. Gravatar of P Burgos P Burgos
    7. September 2018 at 06:11

    One thing that I always wonder about Trump critics is whether their dislike/hatred is motivated primarily by Trump’s stated agenda or whether it is motivated primarily by their dislike of Trump himself (i.e. pettiness, graft, etc.). That is to say, when I read someone criticizing Trump (and not his policies and agenda) I always am skeptical about those criticisms, because ad hominem attacks are a frequent rhetorical device to discredit the agenda of a political figure. What if it was Mitt Romney instead of Trump attempting to reduce immigration, cut regulations, lower taxes, renegotiate trade deals, and following a Trumpist foreign policy of shouting loudly but having very little commitment to actually use US military force abroad? There are people who criticize Trump for his “impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective” leadership style, his graft and his rhetorical disregard for the importance of constitutional and institutional norms against abuses of government power, for example Ross Douthat, who seems to have been espousing a kind of conservative nationalist/proto-Trumpist policy agenda for 15 years.

  15. Gravatar of Patrick R. Sullivan Patrick R. Sullivan
    7. September 2018 at 08:06

    ‘One thing that I always wonder about Trump critics is whether their dislike/hatred is motivated primarily by Trump’s stated agenda or whether it is motivated primarily by their dislike of Trump himself (i.e. pettiness, graft, etc.).’

    Those aren’t the only choices. How about egotism and moral vanity. It’s hard to believe anyone as simple minded as the author of the NYT Op-ed comes across as, could get into a senior position in the US govt. You have to be deliberately obtuse to simultaneously credit Trump with successes and claim it happened in spite of Trump.

    I.e., it was thanks to ME.

  16. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    7. September 2018 at 09:39

    Burgos. Trump has multiple problems:

    1. Bad policies on globalization.

    2. His personality has no positive characteristics. He has virtually every character flaw a human being can have. He’s stupid, vindictive, corrupt, lazy, cruel, cowardly, bigoted, sexist, dishonest, etc., etc.

    A Romney that opposed immigration and trade would have the first problem but not the second.

  17. Gravatar of P Burgos P Burgos
    7. September 2018 at 10:24

    I guess I am simply frustrated that so much discourse on Trump treats #2 (Trump’s personality) as a sufficient refutation of the desirability of #1 (Trump’s policy agenda). Not that I agree with his policy agenda. Trump was at his most unpopular right after the tax cuts and Republican attempts at healthcare reform. Which I think means that the public actually does pay enough attention to the big policy stories to somewhat know what is going on, and also to care about them. One thing that I think opponents of Trump’s policies should worry about is that Trump won not because of his personality, but despite it, and his agenda really is broadly popular, and it will be easy enough for another politician who is actually personally likable and/or admirable and take that agenda and turn it electoral success and implement that agenda in a more disciplined/effective way. Also, just FYI, I think that libertarians are the one group of people who have been pretty good at pointing out how they oppose his policies, and why they aren’t good for the country. The left and the Never Trumpers seem to view him more as a symbol, and mostly attack him that way. That is, he is a symbol of white supremacy, or sexism, etc., and therefore evil. Not “Trump’s tax cuts are bad for you, average American voter, and bad for the country,” which the evidence seems to suggest is the message that actually works and gets the public to re-evaluate how they feel about Trump. I don’t know how we have gotten into the bizarro world where the broad policy disputes between the parties seem to be what voters and the public care about, yet even politicians who are wonkish, like Hillary Clinton, run campaigns that de-emphasize the policy consequences of an election.

  18. Gravatar of anon/portly anon/portly
    7. September 2018 at 11:56

    I think Burgos has the nub of the gist of a good point. Obviously Trump’s repulsiveness makes it inevitable that some (or all) will conflate criticisms about his behavior with criticism about his policies.

    For example, when a staple of his rally speeches is to drone on and on about Mexican rapists and the like, it’s easy to make a connection between his immigration and trade policies and his personal style. But Trump is inviting this, right? He himself is really the one who is establishing this connection – it’s not something that happens by accident.

    “What if it was Mitt Romney instead of Trump attempting to reduce immigration, cut regulations, lower taxes, renegotiate trade deals, and following a Trumpist foreign policy of shouting loudly but having very little commitment to actually use US military force abroad?”

    If the idea here is that Mitt’s rhetoric and/or personal style would have been kindler and gentler, then you also have to wonder whether he would have been the R nominee with Trump’s platform, or if he had been the R nominee, would he have beaten Hillary?

    Pitchfork Pat Buchanan ran on a similar platform and didn’t win. I’m not sure a kindler/gentler Trump or version of Trump would have gotten the nomination either. Burgos has a point but maybe not the point he thinks he has; maybe the point really is that the policies and the personality aren’t truly separate things.

  19. Gravatar of anon/portly anon/portly
    7. September 2018 at 12:33

    “Almost every day we receive new evidence of the unbelievable incompetence of our current President—by far the worst in US history.”

    Since when does “unbelievable incompetence” make you the worst US president? I’m skeptical. James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson and Nixon are usually picked as the worst presidents not because of a lack of competence, at least not in Johnson’s and Nixon’s cases, I don’t think.

    What interesting about people who compare DJT with earlier presidents is that they miss the obvious comp. Consider these fascinating parallels:

    JFK: cut taxes.

    DJT: cut taxes.

    JFK: Bobby Kennedy and Sargent Shriver.

    DJT: Don Jr. and Jared Kushner.

    JFK: Smarter than you thought; read John Barth novels.

    DJT: Smarter than you thought: doesn’t use a teleprompter.

    JFK: Tangled with the Rooskies.

    DJT: Entangled with the Rooskies.

    JFK: slept with anything (sufficiently attractive) that moved.

    DJT: slept with anyone (sufficiently attractive) for hire.

    JFK: had he only lived, would have gotten us out of Vietnam (typical sort of thing his fans say).

    DJT: only wants to start a trade war to get a “better deal” (typical sort of thing his fans say).

    JFK: Okayed “Bay of Pigs.”

    DJT: Okayed – whoops, CIA neutered by “deep state,” apparently.

    JFK: 12 other men aboard PT-109 (when it sank).

    DJT: 13 other owners in USFL (when it sank).

    Okay, okay, I’m obviously running out of material….

  20. Gravatar of anon/portly anon/portly
    7. September 2018 at 12:40

    Oh good ****ing grief, how did I miss this one?

    JFK: Hyannisport.

    DJT: Mar-a-Lago.

  21. Gravatar of Mike Sandifer Mike Sandifer
    8. September 2018 at 04:29

    Scott,

    I think you’re right to a degree about Islamaphobia perhaps being a larger factor in the rise of right-wing populism, but I don’t think it’s as dominant a factor as you seem to suggest. You do make me think I was one of the people underestimating this factor, but I think a general disgust about corruption also looms large and perhaps larger. I also give soured economic prospects weight.

    I think Bernie Sanders could have beaten Trump. I don’t have much evidence. I don’t trust polls about hypothetical races much, though such polls gave Sanders a bigger edge against Trump than Clinton. I also have some weak anecdotal evidence in the number of Trump voters who told me they’d have voted for Sanders over Trump. Apart from these being anecdotes, I don’t necessarily trust what people tell me about hypothetical races outside of polling either.

    So, I also look at trend in the Democratic Party of politicians refusing PAC money and karge donor contributions in general, and look at the success some are having electorally. And I see how trust is long gone for Republican leaders as far as their base is concerned. Their base thinks they’re all about the donors. Trump supporters kept telling me Trump couldn’t be bought. As laughable as that was, many believed it. Again, those are just anecdotes, but widespread.

    I’m also seeing a convergence of the far left and far right on some disturbing anti-free market issues, such as attacking big tech, wanting more protectionism, etc. I suspect the world is changing too quickly in the minds of some, and I suspect that’s also a factor.

    Finally, I think there’s a healthcare crisis for tens of millions who either don’t qualify for subsidies on exchanges and have no employer-based plan, or those who make too little money for an ACA plan, but live in states without Medicare expansion. I help lots of people choose health plans and I see the anger and disbelief at the premiums and rates of increases. Many who supported Trump would prefer Medicare, but don’t like to talk about it. Again, just anecdotes, but polls also indicate strong support for Medicare for All, even among Republicans.

    Medicare is too expensive, but it’s cheaper than the ACA.

  22. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    8. September 2018 at 11:00

    The Trump as a dope, insane, a thief, etc has grown tiresome.When I worked at various companies and we had a good year, I never said “I should get paid more because we did X% better”. I would say, instead, “the worst thing you can say about me is that I did not prevent good things from happening” . Counterfactuals are fantasies and not provable, so this is irrelevant. I look at Trump this way. He has not prevented good things from happening.

    When watching the Kavanagh hearings, it was impossible to not be struck how absurd the leading Democrats were—leading meaning the ones who want to be president. Harris, Booker, et. al. These are the people who will be trying to run against Trump. Are they anymore sane than Trump? They don’t look that way. It almost does not matter what Trump is, it matters who the alternatives are.

    My belief is this fake war between parties and against Trump has begun to wallow on the vine as the parties get ready for 2020. Then it will go into the highest gear ever in 2020.

  23. Gravatar of Rob Rob
    9. September 2018 at 00:04

    I honestly can’t understand why prof Sumner complains about Trump so much.

    It’s given him the perfect excuse to virtue-signal about what a morally upright person he is.

    Thinks we should import the third world ?
    CHECK

    Kneels before women ?
    CHECK

    Wishes the proles would just drop dead ?
    CHECK

    he has virtually every character flaw a human being can have. He’s stupid, vindictive, corrupt, lazy, cruel, cowardly, bigoted, sexist, dishonest, etc., etc.

    Methinks thou doth project too much.

  24. Gravatar of Mike Sandifer Mike Sandifer
    9. September 2018 at 04:40

    Here’s some more support for Scott’s hypothesis:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/asia/china-uighur-muslim-detention-camp.html#click=https://t.co/AAF9tYym0W

    I’m starting to realize Islam has an image problem around the world.

  25. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    9. September 2018 at 15:44

    anon/portly, I’m not focusing on bad policies (of Nixon and others) that other presidents would have also opted for. I’m looking at the President’s marginal product.

    Michael, You said:

    “It almost does not matter what Trump is, it matters who the alternatives are.”

    GOP voters picked Trump over Jeb Bush, Rubio, Kasich, Cruz, etc.

  26. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    10. September 2018 at 21:40

    “GOP voters picked Trump over Jeb Bush, Rubio, Kasich, Cruz, etc.”

    Sumner, I’m sure you realize the sheer extent of economic ignorance of the average voter.

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