Just a reminder: Presidents can't do much about the economy

On election night in 2008, I saw a bunch of people twittering some variant of “It’s 1932!” This also seems to have been what Democrats in Congress thought–they seem to have believed that they had near-FDR levels of political capital to work with. But as I said at the time, the relevant comparison was not 1932, but 1929. Financial crises take a while to work through, and this one may well see Obama leaving office after one term, many of his policies tainted by association with a recession he didn’t cause and couldn’t ever have done much about…

Whichever way it works out, one side or another will overattribute the 2012 economy to Obama and the Democrats. The fact is, the president can’t do much more than tinker around the edges of a $14 trillion economy–for which we can humbly thank God every day. If presidents really did have the kind of power over the economy that their friends or enemies try to claim, the world would be a much more terrifying place.