Making Health-Care History - The next President will have a fighting chance to defeat the lobbyists and reform a broken system

摘要

WITH THE ECONOMY clearly the No. 1 issue in the presidential race, it's time to get serious about what any President can and cannot actually do about it. Which campaign promises are worth considering seriously, and which are just poll-driven pandering? On most economic matters most of the time, Presidents can't do nearly as much as they'd like us to think. Despite all the overheated election-year rhetoric to the contrary, Presidents can't do much to create or destroy jobs - at least not in the short run. Global labor markets are changing right now in historic ways having nothing to do with who's in the White House. For that matter, Presidents can rarely do anything significant to start or end recessions. You can blame George W. Bush for the subprime mortgage mess - giving Presidents credit or blame for the economy is a grand political tradition - but it actually wasn't his fault.