James Pethokoukis Got A Brand New Blog

Jimmy Pethokoukis has moved his blog from US News and World Report to Reuters and, in one of his first posts, he says that he disagrees with something I said on Tuesday about the politics of the deficit. His money quote:

I think the number one issue (in the 2010 election) will be only tangentially deficit related, something along the lines of “We just spend trillions in  borrowed money and unemployment is still at 10 percent.”

First, I'm not sure he's really disagreeing with me.  We both said the deficit will be an issue in the 2010 campaign.  Actually, I said the deficit; he said the debt.  But you can't have one without the other so I'm going to all it a tie.

I agree that unemployment will likely be higher than the White House would like on Election Day 2010.

But if Jimmy is saying that unemployment will be the pprimary remaining economic issue on November 2, 2010, he is likely also saying that all of the other statistics like GDP growth, consumer confidence and spending, home prices and sales, the Dow, corporate profits, etc. will have recovered to the point where they are not much of a concern.  My guess is that, while congressional Democrats would prefer to have unemployment not lag that far behind as voters go to the polls, they will be happy to stake their record on an economy that is widely recognized as recovering.

I have no doubt that, as Jimmy says, unemployment will be the issue on which the the GOP tries to hang its political hat in 2010 and that congressional Republicans will try to tie it to the deficit or debt.

But I'm not sure how effective that will be.  It's not at all clear that Republicans are seen as the political party best equipped to deal with the budget.  More important, the deficit will very likely fall substantially from 2009 to 2010 as things like stimulus bills and bailouts aren't repeated and activities in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down.  It could well become clear by Election Day that the deficit has fallen by a whopping $700 billion.

In any case, it's good to have Pethokoukis around in new new incarnation at Reuters and you should definitely bookmark his new blog.  For me, what he says alternaties between infuriating and enthralling.  But it's always interesting and these days that's something always worth checking out.