MARY WALDEN:<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cToday\u2019s program looks at the economic power of the president. Mike, whenever a new president takes office there seems to be an expectation the person will almost single-handedly fix our economic ills. I think we are now experiencing this with President Trump. Is this a realistic standard for any president?\u201d<\/p>\n
MIKE WALDEN:<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cWell any president faces several constraints in terms of, what\u2019s called, trying to manage the economy. One is the business cycle. The business cycle is simply the irregular ups and downs in the economy and economic growth. It includes periods where we\u2019re achieving faster growth, as well as recessionary periods where we at first slow down, then actually constrict.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cSome say this is due, the cycle is due, to things like the inventory cycle, the investment cycle, and those are really outside the control of the president. So that\u2019s one constraint.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cAnother constraint are what we call structural factors. These are related to the average age in the economy. They\u2019re related to how many people, for example, are young and coming into the economy when they tend not to be as productive. And again, these are things that are virtually beyond the control of the president.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cYou have monetary policy. That\u2019s controlled by the Federal Reserve. The president doesn\u2019t have direct control over the Federal Reserve. The president can appoint members to the Board of Governors of the Fed, but they have very, very long terms with the exception of the chair. And of course the Federal Reserve has a lot of control over federal interest rates. So the president doesn\u2019t control interest rates.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cWhat the president does have influence on with the Congress is fiscal policy: taxes and public spending. But again, here it\u2019s a shared control. The president can\u2019t dictate taxes, can\u2019t dictate public spending. It all has to go through Congress. So I think there are a lot of headwinds against any president if that president tries to be in charge of the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike Walden is a William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor and Extension Economist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at North Carolina State University who teaches and writes on personal finance, economic outlook, and public policy.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"[embed]https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/user-653135353\/economic-power-of-the-president[\/embed]\r\nMARY WALDEN:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\u201cToday\u2019s program looks at the economic power of the president. Mike, whenever a new president takes office there seems to be an expectation the person will almost single-handedly fix our economic ills. I think we are now experiencing this with President Trump. Is this a realistic standard for any president?\u201d\r\nMIKE WALDEN:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\u201cWell any president faces several constraints in terms of, what\u2019s called, trying to manage the economy. One is the business cycle. The business cycle is simply the irregular ups and downs in the economy and economic growth. It includes periods where we\u2019re achieving faster growth, as well as recessionary periods where we at first slow down, then actually constrict.\u201d<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cSome say this is due, the cycle is due, to things like the inventory cycle, the investment cycle, and those are really outside the control of the president. So that\u2019s one constraint.\u201d<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cAnother constraint are what we call structural factors. These are related to the average age in the economy. They\u2019re related to how many people, for example, are young and coming into the economy when they tend not to be as productive. And again, these are things that are virtually beyond the control of the president.\u201d<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cYou have monetary policy. That\u2019s controlled by the Federal Reserve. The president doesn\u2019t have direct control over the Federal Reserve. The president can appoint members to the Board of Governors of the Fed, but they have very, very long terms with the exception of the chair. And of course the Federal Reserve has a lot of control over federal interest rates. So the president doesn\u2019t control interest rates.\u201d<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat the president does have influence on with the Congress is fiscal policy: taxes and public spending. But again, here it\u2019s a shared control. The president can\u2019t dictate taxes, can\u2019t dictate public spending. It all has to go through Congress. So I think there are a lot of headwinds against any president if that president tries to be in charge of the economy.\u201d\r\n\r\nMike Walden is a William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor and Extension Economist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at North Carolina State University who teaches and writes on personal finance, economic outlook, and public policy.<\/span>"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Any president faces several constraints when trying to manage the economy. What are those constraints, and what can the president influence through his office in regards to policy? NC State University economist Mike Walden discusses the factors that play into the economy and the president.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":145215,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[59,1181,1],"tags":[141],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-154291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economic-perspective","category-newswire","category-uncategorized","tag-mike-walden"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154291"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154291"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154316,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154291\/revisions\/154316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154291"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=154291"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=154291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}