Americans have not been this confident since '20s
Sunday, November 08, 1998
By JIM NESBITT
NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE
With their refusal to turn Tuesday's election into a referendum on President Clinton's sordid behavior and their continued faith in an era of domestic prosperity and relative international tranquility, Americans are firmly rejecting doom-and-gloom predictions that this country's seven-year economic party is over.
The question is: Are they sleep-walking past telltales of pending disaster, such as the financial meltdowns in Asia, Latin America and Russia and the battering of the Farm Belt economy, or are they more in tune with the nation's sense of well-being and financial resiliency than the pundits and the pols?
Maybe a bit of both, say historians, political scientists, pollsters and other experts.
"Americans always tend to spend until the money runs out and drink until the well has run dry," said Edwin Dorn, dean of the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.
"We will not worry about Asia or Latin America until we actually feel the hurt. . . . This is an era of good feeling that we haven't experienced in 70 years, since the Roaring '20s. Of course, that era ended with a depression."
What's clear is the convergence of a continued streak of economic velvet and an election that shattered historic precedents, handing the Republicans the worst midterm election showing since 1822 for the party not holding the White House.
President Clinton can take heart that these results make successful impeachment a less likely proposition, but the larger issue stretches well beyond such inside-the-Beltway calculus and reinforces an old maxim: In the absence of a compelling international crisis, voters vote their pocketbooks.
"Until the economy goes down the toilet, you won't see any major change," said Michael Gant, director of the Social Science Research Institute at the University of Tennessee.
We're all right, Jack, voters seemed to say. In fact, we're beyond all right, sailing down an Easy Street this country has never seen before. No World War II, no Great Depression, no Soviet Bear threatening to nuke us into the Stone Age, jobs for almost everybody who wants one, even if more of them are part-time.
"This is a very confident time in American life," said Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. "Americans are extraordinarily satisfied with their lives on a broad range of issues."
Other experts put a slightly different spin on what the American electorate said last week: We're all right, but if we aren't, don't tell us, don't wake us up with nasty distractions like impeachment and sex scandals with White House interns, don't tell us our economy is coming down with a bad case of Asian flu. Just let us keep on dreaming.
If you do wake us up, it had better be about something we care about. Like education. Or taxes. Or keeping the good times propped up, like Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan chopping interest rates. Give us a good reason to vote for you - something Republicans all too often failed to do, say the experts.
"I don't think the public appreciates just how entangled our economy is with the rest of the world's and how fast everything can turn downward," said Elliott West, a history professor at the University of Arkansas.
"People don't think about that. They're thinking the economy is healthy, the interest rates are low, the stock market has calmed down, there's lots of jobs - what's to worry?"
There is ample reason for both worry and faith.
In late summer, the stock market was a scary roller coaster, plummeting and rocketing to news of the latest foreign financial crisis and rebound. The Dow Jones industrial average bounced up by 77 points after the election and is still riding at unheard-of levels. Factory orders lagged this summer, but a government report released last week showed an unexpected increase of 0.4 percent.
The Asian financial crisis and a strong U.S. dollar have created a sharp trade imbalance, meaning the United States is importing more goods than it is exporting. That's been devastatingly bad news for U.S. farmers forced to stockpile bumper crops of grain and corn they expected to sell overseas. So far, though, this imbalance has not led to huge layoffs by U.S. employers, thanks to a domestic economy that is still sporting sluggish growth.
Gallup Poll soundings of Americans' sense of well-being and economic confidence are showing hearty optimism, said Newport, editor in chief of the survey.
The latest numbers show that 66 percent of Americans rated the economic picture as excellent or good; 53 percent say they are better off now than they've ever been, a number far higher than at the height of the Reagan-era boom, when only 47 percent felt their fortunes were better than ever.
The last time Americans felt this good about themselves was the early years of Lyndon Johnson's administration - after the country had recovered from the shock of the Kennedy assassination, but before the Vietnam War heated up domestic dissent and economic inflation. Their faith is reflected in Clinton's stubbornly high approval rating, with percentages still in the mid-60s, and an equally high level of opposition to impeachment.
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