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Forecasting the 2012 Presidential Election with the Fiscal Model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2012

Alfred G. Cuzán
Alfred G. Cuzán*
Affiliation:
University of West Florida
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Extract

In March 2009, at a time when President Obama was basking in the glow of the honeymoon with the public every new president enjoys, I asked, “Will Barack Obama be a one-term president?” What prompted me to pose so impertinent a question at so hopeful a time was that the Office of Management and Budget was projecting that that year the federal government would spend 28% of gross domestic product (GDP). This amounted to a 7% point increase compared to the previous year, the largest peacetime one-year jump since 1930. The most recent estimate for 2012 is that federal outlays will take up 24.3% of GDP, up 3.5% points since 2008. This is the second-largest peacetime increase from one election year to the next since 1880, edged out only by Franklin D. Roosevelt's first-term surge of 3.6% points.

Type
Symposium: Forecasting the 2012 American National Elections
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , October 2012 , pp. 648 - 650
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2012 

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References

Cuzán, Alfred G., and Budrick, Charles M.. 2004. “Fiscal Effects on Presidential Elections: A Forecast for 2004.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, September.Google Scholar
Cuzán, Alfred G., and Budrick, Charles M.. 2008. “Forecasting the 2008 Presidential Election: A Challenge for the Fiscal Model.” PS: Political Science and Politics 41 (4): 717–22.Google Scholar
Cuzán, Alfred G., Heggen, Richard J., and Budrick, Charles M.. 2009. “Fiscal Policy in American Presidential Elections: A Simulation.” Simulation 85 (1): 5–15.Google Scholar
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