Is life better for people when the generally more fiscally Conservative Republicans run Congress?
It certainly seems to be.
To date, Arthur Okun’s Misery Index, adding the inflation rate to the unemployment rate) remains one of the best economic snapshots available to us, for how the economy is treating the people.
What I’ve done is to take two twelve-year periods, one set in which the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress and another in which the GOP controlled both Houses.
I took the most recent periods for both Parties in which they each controlled both Houses.
For the Democrats, I took 1978 thru 1980, 1987 thru 1994 and 2007, and for the GOP, I took 1995 thru 2006.
The results are stark.
The Democrats twelve-year average is 11.7 compared to 7.6 for the GOP years! Moreover, 60% of the Democratic years were in the double digits, compared to 0% for the GOP!
That’s right 0%!
In fact, over that period, the only two years were significantly below double-digits (1994 and 2007) the first fueled, in part by the “peace dividend” and the second (2007) coming amidst the revenue boosting “Bush tax cuts of 2001.
More damning still, is that every year the Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress, their Misery Indexes beat the Democrat’s 2nd best year (1994’s 8.7)...the worst Misery Index under GOP tenure was 8.5 in 2005! Including 1998's "LOWEST Misery Index in over forty years" (6.05).
Ouch, those Liberal policies really do hurt!
It certainly seems to be.
To date, Arthur Okun’s Misery Index, adding the inflation rate to the unemployment rate) remains one of the best economic snapshots available to us, for how the economy is treating the people.
What I’ve done is to take two twelve-year periods, one set in which the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress and another in which the GOP controlled both Houses.
I took the most recent periods for both Parties in which they each controlled both Houses.
For the Democrats, I took 1978 thru 1980, 1987 thru 1994 and 2007, and for the GOP, I took 1995 thru 2006.
The results are stark.
The Democrats twelve-year average is 11.7 compared to 7.6 for the GOP years! Moreover, 60% of the Democratic years were in the double digits, compared to 0% for the GOP!
That’s right 0%!
In fact, over that period, the only two years were significantly below double-digits (1994 and 2007) the first fueled, in part by the “peace dividend” and the second (2007) coming amidst the revenue boosting “Bush tax cuts of 2001.
More damning still, is that every year the Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress, their Misery Indexes beat the Democrat’s 2nd best year (1994’s 8.7)...the worst Misery Index under GOP tenure was 8.5 in 2005! Including 1998's "LOWEST Misery Index in over forty years" (6.05).
Ouch, those Liberal policies really do hurt!
4 comments:
tis all about BIG government..they could care less about Joe the plumber or u or me my friend!!
That's very true, but here is the PROOF that the economy IS better when fiscal conservatives are in office.
I'm with womanhonorthyself. That's why I'm looking forward to a dominant Dem govt. They will not have W or the Reps to kick around when people get p----d at them. I'm already planning alternative careers in order to survive.
You're a very sensible individual Rachel.
Certainly, the more skills one has, the more insulated one is to economic dislocations.
Moreover, I tend to agree with you and disagree with Mike Medved, who seems to see "the end of the world as we know it," with an Obama win...I don't.
I DO see some tremendous economic dislocation and if we're all lucky perhaps the "re-Carteriazation" of the Keynesian ideas and policies.
My assessment (and, as always, I may be quite wrong) is that McCain offers nothing all that different than what Obama is offering.
In FACT, both G W Bush and John McCain have been more than happy over the past two years to sign onto the Pelsoi-Reid Keynesian shift.
I fear that a McCain win would only serve to "share the blame" for the coming calamities.
As Joseph Stiglitz (the 2001 Nobel Prize winner in Economics) has said, "We will almost surely be going into a deep recession — the longest since the Great Depression. The immediate focus will be how to prevent it from getting worse. Inevitably, unemployment will grow, but more and more will find their benefits expire before they find another job — some 700,000 or so are likely to be in this position in the next few weeks. Pumping money into the banks was critical, but trickle-down economics...by itself (is) not enough. States are facing massive shortfall in revenues, and without aid, they have to start laying off workers. Foreclosures are likely to continue apace, as house prices continue to fall as a result of the bursting of the bubble.
That bolded sentence, lost in there is the key, in my view, as many, many teachers, cops, firefighters and other "career civil servants" will soon face the same kind of reality their private sector cohorts have faced for decades...and they're NOT going to like it.
I will be happy to use the refrain that so many misguided Leftists have used over the past few years, in their parlance, "Don't blame Clinton for the stuff going on today," (not even when the current problems (ie. the subprime loan explosion) occured on his watch...well, going forward, "Let us not blame the Bush administration for the calamities yet to come..."
Now I WILL blame Bush (as I'd also accept that from the likes of yourself and Barry and others who've been fair all along)...for so eagerly selling out and signing onto the Pelosi-Reid Keynesian shift, but I don't want to hear any of that coming from the far-Left precincts that refused to look at past history, when it did not suit their own agenda.
I do agree with your economic assessment rachel, no matter which of these two get in, I fear there are some very hard times coming...and a very spoiled nation isn't going to have much patience for that.
That's partly why I tend to say, "Better Obama, then to have the GOP share the blame for a disaster they're really not going to be to blame for."
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