My guess would be that gridlock is, in general, bad for everyone, and whether the economy does better or worse under gridlock has more to do with where we are in a business cycle than it does with whether we are gridlocked or not. This is probably a case of correlation being the result of a fortuitously selected starting point and yet another example of correlation not indicating cause. Coming off the great recession, after gridlock set in, the economy did improve. The effect of Gridlock did not really set in, however, until after the under- pining of the current business cycle was already in place. In the closing days of the prior cycle which ended about March of 2009 there was not gridlock, there was the usual obstruction, but not gridlock, the Democrats controlled both houses. It wasn't until after the midterm election in Obama's first term that the Republicans took over the House. Then there was gridlock! And there was absolute gridlock after McConnell took over the Senate leadership in 2015. By then, however, the economy was already well on the way toward recovery. Perhaps the progress made under gridlock had more to do with starting point selection than it did to the existence of gridlock.
The Forbes article took no account of hysteresis in the economy. Their analysis seemed to have assumed that stimulus measures produce instant results. I don't see any support for the Forbes Article thesis in the article itself. Perhaps there is some support in our past 100 year history, but certainly, if there is, it would be counter intuitive.
Somethings that are true are counter intuitive. Nevertheless, assertions that do not make sense, ought to be questioned.
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When the GOP became resigned to Obama's election to a second term This became their official policy position:
WASHINGTON—Calling a GOP victory in the 2012 presidential election antithetical to the party platform, top Republicans revealed a new long-term political strategy Tuesday: reelecting Barack Obama and making his life even more of a living hell than it already is.
"For three years, the Republican Party has coalesced around the single goal of making President Obama's every waking moment sheer and utter torture," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters. "But we can't continue to do that if he's not in office."
"If we are going to make the president a haggard shell of a human being by the time he leaves the White House, we need four more years of never compromising, four more years of miring every piece of legislation in unnecessary procedural muck, four more years of pretending we want to work with the president and then walking away from the table at the last second," McConnell added. "Four more years! Four more years! Obama 2012!"
