The budget vs. the economy
John Kerry said that the projected $422 billion federal deficit means that Bush can't handle the economy. Bill Hobbs does a great job explaining why that's a non sequitur. Key sentence: "The federal budget is not the economy, it is a tax on the economy." Excellent post, read it all.

And then read this long piece by the New York Times Magazine that explains in detail the relationship between the president (any president) and job loss or creation, to wit, none:

An intelligent voter could be forgiven for thinking that the most important domestic consideration in the election is how many jobs the candidates would create over the next four years. ...

This mind-set has come to frame the way we think about virtually every economic issue, even those -- like the budget deficit -- that have little impact on employment. It has colored our sense of history, so that a reader of campaign news might reasonably conclude that Bill Clinton "created" 22 million jobs and that Bush first "lost" nearly 3 million and, then -- wonder of wonders -- won half of them back.

There is one problem with such thinking: virtually no one involved with presidential politics, and virtually no economist, believes it. Robert Barbera, chief economist at the brokerage firm of ITG/Hoenig, says that in his 30 years in the business, "the notion that presidents create and lose jobs is the most grotesque mischaracterization of the economic backdrop" that he has witnessed. ...

... neither Bush's economists nor Kerry's nor many who have served in administrations past really believe that job numbers are a reflection of presidential performance. Robert Reich, secretary of labor under Clinton, says bluntly, "Job numbers are largely a function of population and the business cycle, and the business cycle has its own rhythm."