Hold onto your hats. A mighty wind is blowing and it’s bringing news that you’d never guess: More than 75% of Members of Congress have no economics education. Now it’s true that book learning isn’t the only way to learn about how the economy works, but it isn’t as if Congress is showing it has the smarts it needs. The study that came up with these findings was made by www.DefeattheDebt.com, a project of the Employment Policies Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to studying policy issues especially employment and the economy The study asked, “How many members of Congress have an academic background that provided them with a basic understanding how the economy works?” According to the study:
The answer, it turns out, is not many. Publicly available data…show that over three-quarters of members of Congress—nearly 8 out of 10—lack an academic background in business or economics. Only 8.4 percent majored in an economics-related field, and 13.8 percent majored in a business or accounting-related field. Over half (55.5 percent) majored in either government-related fields or the humanities; another 11.5 percent majored in science or technology-related fields. This research suggests that our elected Representatives may want to dust off their Econ 101 textbook (if they have one) before
trying to tackle weighty questions about the impact of taxes, spending, and debt on our economy and the labor markets.
Combine this with a president whose academic transcript is a blank page and you could see how much difficulty we’ll face as a country as we try to dig out of our current economic doldrums.
H/t: Robert A. Hall www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com
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