Economic Recovery Predictions

Here I go with another round of predictions for the economy.  I've been accused by one correspondent of confirmation bias when I predict that if Romney wins the election there will still be a recovery, implying that Obama will get the credit even if he's voted out of office.  So here goes:

My prediction is that the economy will indeed improve in a Romney administration, but the deficit situation will get worse. Under Obama the economy will also improve, but we'll have universal health care so I'm rooting for that. I think an Obama administration would be better for the deficit because it won't allow the crazy tax cuts being proposed by GOP.

To further muddy the waters, I'd predict that if Romney is elected and somehow does indeed follow through with a Ryan-type budget, successfully cutting spending as much as he says he will, then the economy will not improve and we'll have a double dip.

Obama doesn't get the credit from me for a Romney-led recovery, by the way. Improvement in the economy always happens eventually. If Obama loses the election, liberals like me are going to say he should have pushed for more stimulus early on when he had the chance- lost opportunity in 2009 is his own fault.

But then there's this: if Romney wins, and does the following:

• Cuts taxes below even Bush rates
• Increases defense spending
• Cuts programs to the poor, the only deficit-reducing thing on this list (and not enough to make up for the first two items)
• Repeals the ACA, increasing the deficit according to the CBO

...and thereby increases the deficit in the short term by a large amount,

Then isn't that a Keynesian policy by Romney?  Lowering taxes and increasing spending in an economic downturn is textbook Keynes.

Romney has already made statements on the stump and in his convention speech indicating that he buys into Keynes when the subject is military spending and tax cuts. He complained that the Sequestration military cuts would cost jobs, a strange statement if he really believes in smaller government as the most important way to create jobs.

We need to understand that the president is not King, and is highly constricted by Congress and events out of his control. That's why I think it's silly to completely blame Obama for failing to create jobs over the past two years when he's had a Congress that will never pass his Jobs Bill. And President Romney, if he has a Democratic Senate, will have the same problem. That's why I give no slack to GWB- he had 6 years of total control of Congress with no such excuses.

Past predictions are here and here.  I've been pretty consistent about 2012 results and the economy so far, but the Moment of Truth comes in the following years.