Political Parties

     Designed to represent groups of people with roughly similar ideas surrounding both economic and social policy, political parties play an important role in American government. Political parties are different from interest groups; rather than attempting to influence policymakers, political parties aim to elect the policymakers and gain control of the government. They do this by nominating candidates who, once elected, will work towards achieving the goals and representing the interests of their respective party. Political parties also simplify the voting process. The majority of voters and candidates represent one of two parties; either the Republican party or the Democratic party. Often, these are the only two parties reflected on the ballot. In serving the general interests of large numbers of people, these parties limit the choices available to voters. While this means that not all political beliefs are always represented, it allows for candidates to be elected by large majorities of people. Political parties create clarity surrounding elections and do the important job of representing American voters.

     The question as to which political party is better suited to shaping a successful economy is an interesting one because there is no right answer. Four of the five presidents who have been in office for the largest economic expansions since WWII have been Democrats, those being Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton, and Carter (Figure 1), but this could very well just be a coincidence.

Figure 1

A study conducted by Princeton researchers in 2014 found that differences in the performance of the economy under different presidents can be explained by "good luck" and a touch of "good policy". Presidents often inherit problems with the economy and aren't left enough time to take preventative action. Ronald Reagan's term in office, for example, began with the US being thrown into a recession. Similarly, the Great Recession was already underway by the time Obama was inaugurated. However, looking again at Figure 1, we can see that these similar circumstances yielded very different GDP growth rates for the two presidents, suggesting again that policy has little impact on the economy. Job growth has also changed from administration to administration (Figure 2).

Figure 2

Where Kennedy had the highest average GDP growth per quarter, he had the sixth highest average job gains. There are simply too many influencing factors on the economy to determine which party has a better policy supporting a successful economy.