Funny how most economists disagree with you. But then there's no stopping partisan hackery. Oh well.It was republican deregulation policies that created the GREAT DEPRESSION of 1929. It was FDR's policies that brought the economy back. It was Raygun's policies that tripled the national debt. It was Shrub daddy's policies the doubled it again in only four years. It was Clinton's policies that balanced the budget and gave us the greatest economy since the sixties. It was Shrub Jr.'s policies of welfare to millionaires that destroyed the balanced budget in his first six months, and his policies of war and deregulation that destroyed the economy again. And it was Obama that kept us from another GREAT DEPRESSION.Pretty much presidents have little impact on the US economy and virtually none on international economics with a very few minor exceptions, Both Bush and Obama temporarily pumped trillions into the economy which in actuality helped slow the damage the housing bubble caused (no, it wasn't any politician or group of politicians that caused the housing bubble). The Fed, who generally is the one who controls the economy, was floundering, the one and only thing Obama has done since for the economy is to protect the Fed from the Hard Money Republicans who would force the Fed into potentially serious economy destroying policies.Shrub left Obama with a $1.2 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2009, and a totally destroyed U.S. and global economy. Shrub added $3 trillion to the debt with welfare for millionaires, and destroyed the balanced budget. He also added $6 trillion to the debt with his invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Shrub also bailed out Wall Street with a trillion dollars. That's $10 trillion on Shrub.We continue to see liberals here ignoring the facts about Obama's economic record, to the point of claiming that the economy is "roaring" (actually, GDP growth has slowed to a crawl again), that Obama "rescued" America from the economic mess "that Bush left behind," that Obama has been more fiscally conservative than Bush, and other rather surprising myths. Here are some facts to set the record straight--and plenty of links will be provided at the end of the post [I just added an addendum with more links]:
-- Obama has shattered Bush's record of debt accumulation, and he has done so in less than 6.5 years. In 8 years, Bush added $4.9 trillion to the national debt (from $5.7 trillion in January 2001 to $10.6 trillion in January 2009). In only 6 years and 5 months, Obama has added $7.5 trillion to the national debt (from $10.6 trillion in January 2009 to $18.1 trillion as of last month). And it's worth noting that we would be even deeper in debt if Obama and the Democrats had gotten their way on spending.
-- Obama's "recovery" has been the slowest and weakest in modern history. For example, by this same point in Reagan's recovery, the labor force participation rate was substantially higher, median income was higher, disposable income was higher, and the gain in jobs was more than twice as high. And it should be noted that the recession that Reagan had to overcome was arguably just as bad as, and in some ways worse than, the one that Obama faced (e.g., the unemployment rate went higher, interest rates were in double digits, and inflation was in double digits in the recession that Reagan faced).
-- Under Obama, there has been a net increase in the number of Americans out of the workforce. In February 2009, there were 80.7 million Americans out of the workforce. As of last month, there were 92.9 million Americans out of the workforce, a whopping increase of 12.2 million in less than 6.5 years.
Some liberals have argued that workforce participation has dropped because the number of retirees has substantially increased. Sorry, that argument won't work. Kyle Smith, an economic and financial analyst with Forbes magazine, explains:
It’s misleading to compare employment rates during the two presidencies. Imagine 90 out of 100 people are employed, and because the economy looks like it’s picking up more steam 10 more people enter the workforce. If nine out of ten of them find jobs, the unemployment rate doesn’t go down at all, yet ten percent more people are employed.
Reagan’s economy was so strong that, for the last three-quarters of his administration, Americans were flooding into the workforce. Under Obama, the opposite has happened, and those who have given up on working aren’t counted as unemployed. Even today, more than five years into the tepid recovery, labor-force participation remains at its lowest level since 1978.
Don’t blame waves of retirement for that fact: the Census Bureau reported that, from 2005 to 2010, older Americans actually became more likely to be employed. The percentage of 65-69 year-olds remaining in the workforce jumped from 26 percent to 32 percent over a ten-year-period ending in 2012. Among those 70-74 the jump was even more startling: from 14 percent to 19.5 percent. Meanwhile workers in the prime of their lives have simply left the playing field. (Sorry Obama Fans Reagan Did Better on Jobs and Growth - Forbes
-- Believe it or not, under Obama, income equality has gotten worse and has done so at a faster rate than under any other president since Jimmy Carter.
-- During Obama's 6 years and 5 months in office, median income has dropped substantially from the average median income under Bush (adjusted for inflation). Under Bush, median income averaged at least $56K. Under Obama, median income has averaged around $53K. Last month (May), median income finally reached $54.5K (under Bush, it stayed above $55K for at least 92 of Bush's 96 months in office).
-- Under Obama, wage growth has been worse than it was under Reagan and Clinton.
-- Under Obama, America's debt-to-GDP ratio has gotten much worse. In 2009, our debt was 76% of GDP. Our debt is now 102% of GDP. Our GDP is $17.6 trillion, but our debt is $18.1 trillion. So in just 6 years and 5 months, Obama has increased our debt-to-GDP ratio by a staggering 26 percentage points. (And, yes, we are approaching Greek levels of debt-to-GDP ratio.)
-- Obama's weak and slow recovery has broken the pattern of previous recoveries. In previous recessions in the modern era, the worse the recession was, the stronger the recovery was. Not so under Obama. James Pethokoukis explains:
Typically, after the economy suffers an unusually severe recession, it bounces back in an unusually rapid recovery -- what some economists and others refer to as the "rubber-band effect." But not now. Despite the huge worldwide recession in 2008-09, the economy has experienced only a weak recovery, with fewer people employed in America today than when President Obama took office. "At this point in the typical post-World War II recovery, the economy was growing at an average pace of nearly 5 percent. The Obama recovery has managed just over 2 percent." As James Pethokoukis notes in the New York Post,
A Federal Reserve study from late last year looked at the behavior of recoveries from recessions across 59 advanced and emerging market economies during the last 40 years. The Fed found, to no great surprise, that recoveries “tend to be faster” after severe recessions, such as the one we just had. . .The deeper the downturn, the more robust the rebound — unlessgovernment messes things up.
For example, during the 1981-82 recession, output fell by 2.7 percent and then rose by 15.9 percent over the next 10 quarters (at an average pace of 6.0 percent). During the Great Recession, output fell even more, by 5.1 percent. But during the 10 quarters since, total economic output is up only a paltry 6.2 percent. Score one for Reaganomics.
But what about the depressing effect of Wall Street’s near-death experience back in 2008 and 2009? Well, that same Fed study found that bank or other financial crises “do not affect the strength” of subsequent recoveries. . .[What] might explain half of the Obama recovery’s underperformance versus the Reagan recovery. . .? Maybe we can attribute that to policy differences.
While one president cut long-term marginal tax rates, the other tried a massive burst of federal spending. One empowered private enterprise; the other empowered government. (Economic Recovery Is Slow and Weak Due to Obama Administration Policies Competitive Enterprise Institute
Reagan vs. Obama These 5 Charts Prove Who Was the Better President
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_03062009.pdf
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
The Median Household Income Rose in April - dshort - Advisor Perspectives
Reagan s Median Income was double Obama s
Study Income Growth Under Obama Trails That Under Reagan Clinton
Sorry Obama Fans Reagan Did Better on Jobs and Growth
Wage growth still lagging behind Clinton Reagan years
United States Government Debt to GDP 1940-2015 Data Chart Calendar
America s economy cools in first quarter - Apr. 29 2015
U.S. economic growth slows to 0.2 percent grinding nearly to a halt - The Washington Post
News Release Gross Domestic Product
Economic Recovery Is Slow and Weak Due to Obama Administration Policies Competitive Enterprise Institute
Obama s Latest Non-Recovery Chokes Out - Breitbart
ADDENDUM
Our dismal GDP numbers Under Obama US stuck in slow growth rut
Articles The Obama Economic Record is Even Worse than You Realize
DONALD LAMBRO Obama cherry-picks number to boost economic record - Washington Times
By the Numbers Obama s Economic Jobs and Deficit Performance Is the Worst On Record
Reaganomics Vs. Obamanomics Facts And Figures - Forbes
Barack Obama-san - WSJ
Obama s Stimulus Five Years Later - WSJ
The Five Biggest Failures From President Obama s Stimulus Law - US News
Many Americans still struggling in dismal Obama economy Human Events
Here s How GOP Can Destroy Myth of Obama Economy - Wayne Allyn Root - Page full
Obama has cut the deficit in half, ended the wars, cut unemployment in half, and his economy has tripled Wall Street profits. As usual, cons fuzzy math continues. Con propaganda of Obama being a communist didn't work. Obama being foreign born didn't work. Obama being a Muslim didn't work. And con fuzzy math won't work either.
Maybe we'd be better off thinking about economics less like Washington's little private laboratory and more like the weather—a massive force we cannot hope to control, even as we debate how to respond to its worst excesses.
The policies of the left have always given us prosperity, the policies of the right have always fucked up the economy, all the way back to Lincoln's Civil War.
