The Republican Record

Discussing all things political in NW Arkansas and beyond.
L.Wood
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Re: The Republican Record

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Name these hunters...

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Re: The Republican Record

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Reagan Would Envy Obama’s Economic Record

If there are two things that Republicans want us to believe, it would be these:
1. Barack Obama’s economic policies are a failure which made the recession worse.
2. Ronald Reagan was an economic genius who should serve as an example of how to improve the economy.

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Both Reagan and Obama took office when unemployment was considered fairly high. In February, 1981, Reagan’s first full month as president, unemployment was at 7.4% and was slowly improving. It dropped down to 7.2% by April, his third month in office.

In February, 2009, Obama’s first full month in office, unemployment was at 8.2% and rising rapidly. The economy was already losing 750,000 jobs per month before Obama was sworn in.

Look closely at what happened during each president’s first 2 years in office. By October, 2009, Obama’s 9th month in office, unemployment peaked at 10.1%. After that, we started to see job growth and the unemployment rate declined over the next 2 years. The longer his policies were in effect, the more the economy improved.

Compare that to what happened during Reagan’s first two years. Although unemployment was stable when he first took office, after about 7 months, it started rising. After his first full year, unemployment climbed to 8.5% and it continued to rise throughout his 2nd year. Nearly two full years after Reagan took office, unemployment was at 10.8%, higher than it ever reached under Obama. It wasn’t until nearly 2 ½ years into Reagan’s presidency that unemployment finally dropped below 10%....

Obama clearly inherited a far worse economic situation than Reagan did. Yet he managed to turn around the economy in less than half the time it took Reagan. Obama’s policies resulted in a measurable improvement within a year of taking office, while Reagan’s policies resulted in a worsening of the unemployment situation for two years.

In reviewing Obama’s accomplishment, there are other factors that need to be considered in this comparison. When Reagan was president, Democrats in the House of Representatives who opposed him were willing to make compromises and to work with him in creating jobs. They didn’t see their role as simply to obstruct everything he did.

The Republicans who oppose President Obama have tried to prevent anything from getting done at all with regard to the economy. During the first 2 years, Republicans in the Senate filibustered virtually everything they could; including bills they previously supported, in order to prevent any legislation from coming up for a vote. After gaining control of the House of Representatives, Republicans refused to pass any job creation bills at all, even rejecting proposals that they had supported in previous years.

Despite Republican attempts to stifle job creation, President Obama has managed to have far greater success at pulling the country out of a recession than the sainted Ronald Reagan did during his first 3 years in office."

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Re: The Republican Record

Post by David Franks »

Darrel wrote:Reagan Would Envy Obama’s Economic Record

If there are two things that Republicans want us to believe, it would be these:
1. Barack Obama’s economic policies are a failure which made the recession worse.
2. Ronald Reagan was an economic genius who should serve as an example of how to improve the economy.

[graph]

Both Reagan and Obama took office when unemployment was considered fairly high. In February, 1981, Reagan’s first full month as president, unemployment was at 7.4% and was slowly improving. It dropped down to 7.2% by April, his third month in office.

In February, 2009, Obama’s first full month in office, unemployment was at 8.2% and rising rapidly. The economy was already losing 750,000 jobs per month before Obama was sworn in.

....
I ran across the following graph in the thread at
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/politic ... ation.html :
Recovery & Unemployment 1980 & 2009.JPG
I wonder if there should be a conversion factor in there somewhere to account for the differences in the economies each president started with. I do notice that they don't cover the same time span; the span of the Reagan chart is fourteen months later into his term.
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Re: The Republican Record

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David Franks wrote:I wonder if there should be a conversion factor in there somewhere to account for the differences in the economies each president started with.
And maybe some conversion if labor rates, participation, are calculated different from 30 years ago. It's not clear to me what "Labor Force Participation Rate" means. It may also be the case with vastly increased productivity since then that we can function (and produce more) with less overall participation.

Oh, I see also that the fellow who made that chart (who I don't quite trust, it looks like he has Obama's unemployment coming from over 10%, and he claims what Reagan inherited from Carter was worse than what Obama inherited which is pure idiocy), made a larger one showing Labor Force Participation going way back:

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Notice LFP rate has been declining since 2000.

Oops.

UPDATE: Hmmmm..... WSJ says this:

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Re: The Republican Record

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Why Republicans Need Remedial Math: Their Budget Plans Explode the Deficit

Tuesday 13 March 2012
by: Mike Lofgren

Mike Lofgren is a retired Republican House and Senate staffer.
....
This ignorance extends to fiscal policy and the issues of deficit and debt - those supposedly cardinal strengths that Republicans will try to exploit in order to capture the White House and the Senate; that is, when they are not too busy making fools of themselves over culture wars issues. It is a pity the media concentrate so much on the salacious details of what Rush Limbaugh said about President Obama's policy on insurance coverage for birth control pills, and on Republicans' reactions to the outbursts of a radio entertainer. One would hope the media might give sustained attention to the GOP presidential candidates' budget plans. They would find their proposals riddled with such fantastic assumptions that no neutral observer could come away with any reaction other than that Republicans are so math challenged that they could not manage a lemonade stand, let alone the finances of a nation of 310 million people whose government spends $3.5 trillion a year.

rest of Truthout story is here

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Re: The Republican Record

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Re: The Republican Record

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Another nice compilation of the republican record:

***
Yeppers wrote on May 17, 2012 20:35:20 posted on intrade
Some interesting facts from Politico today in relation to who is better for the economy:

1. For the near half-century following the Kennedy administration, Democrats created nearly twice as many private-sector jobs as Republicans. Even though Democrats held the presidency for only 23 years compared with 28 years of Republican rule.

2. Private-sector payrolls increased by 42 million jobs under Democratic administrations, and 24 million under Republican ones. That’s an average of 150,000 new paychecks a month under Democrats and 71,000 per month under Republicans.

3. How about investing in the stock market? Again, Bloomberg analyzed the data. Investing $1,000 in a hypothetical fund that tracks the Standard & Poor’s 500 index over the past 50 years would have returned $10,920 when Democrats held the White House. The return when Republicans were in power? $2,087.
Annualized returns were 11 percent for the Democrats, 2.7 percent for the Republicans.

4. What about gross domestic product growth? Through 2008, real GDP grew faster under Democratic administrations — 4.1 percent to 2.7 percent for the GOP.

5. Income growth? Under Democrats, the real median income over the past 50 years grew at 2.2 percent. Republicans? 0.6 percent.

6. Number of Americans in poverty? By now you see the pattern. The poverty rate declined under President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent by 1970. A more recent example compares Bill Clinton with George W. Bush. Under Clinton, Americans living in poverty decreased by nearly 20 percent. Under Bush, this number rose by 21 percent.

7. When President Barack Obama took office, he inherited an economy that was losing an average of 750,000 jobs a month. As of April, private-sector jobs have now recovered to the number we had when he started. That’s 4.2 million jobs in the past 26 months.

So why the high unemployment rate? Largely because of public-sector job cuts — most in states that saw new GOP governors and legislatures elected in 2010 slash budgets for teachers, public safety and other service functions. Without these cuts, the Labor Department estimates our unemployment rate would be at 7.1 percent. Not the 8.1 percent it’s at now."

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Re: The Republican Record

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Entitlements grow faster under republicans... Wall Street Journal:

"In current political discourse, it is common to think of the Democrats as the party of entitlements, but long-term trends seem to tell a somewhat different tale. From a purely statistical standpoint, the growth of entitlement spending over the past half-century has been distinctly greater under Republican administrations than Democratic ones. Between 1960 and 2010, the growth of entitlement spending was exponential, but in any given year, it was on the whole roughly 8% higher if the president happened to be a Republican rather than a Democrat.
This is in keeping with the basic facts of the time: Notwithstanding the criticisms of "big government" that emanated from their Oval Offices from time to time, the administrations of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and George W. Bush presided over especially lavish expansions of the American entitlement state."

--Nicholas Eberstadt, of the American Enterprise Institute. WSJ
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Re: The Republican Record

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Re: The Republican Record

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Re: The Republican Record

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11 Things The GOP Doesn't Want You To Know About The Deficit

The Deficit Has Grown Mostly Because Of The Recession
The deficit has ballooned not because of specific spending measures, but because of the recession. The deficit more than doubled between 2008 and 2009, as the economy was in free fall, since laid-off workers paid less in taxes and needed more benefits. The deficit then sharnk in 2010 and 2011.

The Stimulus Cost Much Less Than Bush's Wars, Tax Cuts
Republicans frequently have blamed the $787 billion stimulus for the national debt, but, when all government spending is taken into account, the stimulus frankly wasn't that big. In contrast, the U.S. will have spent nearly $4 trillion on wars in the Middle East by the time those conflicts end, according to a recent report by Brown University. The Bush tax cuts have cost nearly $1.3 trillion over 10 years.

The Deficit Grew Under George W. Bush
When George W. Bush took office, the federal government was running a surplus of $86 billion. When he left, that had turned into a $642 billion deficit.

The Deficit Is Shrinking
Last year's federal budget deficit was 12 percent lower than in 2009, according to the Office of Management and Budget.The deficit is projected to shrink even more over the next several years.

Investors Are Paying Us To Borrow Money
The interest rate on 10-year Treasury bonds is negative, according to the Treasury Department. Investors are even paying us for 30-year Treasury bonds, when adjusted for inflation.

Investors Are Not Running Away
Conservative commentators have been warning for years that investors will run away from Treasury bonds because of the national debt. So far it's not happening. Interest rates on Treasury bonds continue to hover at historic lows.

Health Care Reform Reduces The Deficit
Republicans have blasted the Affordable Care Act as "budget-busting." But health care reform actually reduces the deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The U.S. Is Borrowing Less From China
The U.S. government is borrowing much less from foreign countries than before the recession, according to government data cited by Paul Krugman. That is because the U.S. private sector is financing our bigger deficits.

We Spend A Lot On Defense
Defense spending constituted 20 percent of federal spending last year, or $718 billion, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. This adds up to 41 percent of the world's defense spending, according to Bloomberg TV anchor Adam Johnson. Mitt Romney has vowed to not cut defense spending if elected president.

We Spend A Lot On Health Care
Health insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid, constituted 21 percent of federal spending last year. In contrast, education constituted 2 percent of federal spending. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have promised not to change Medicare for Americans age 55 and older.

Republicans May Want Large Deficits For Now
The federal budget deficit ballooned under Ronald Reagan, and that may be just the way Republicans like it. Some Republican thinkers have proposed "starving the beast": that is, cutting taxes in order to use larger deficits to justify spending cuts later. Since Republicans ultimately want lower taxes and a smaller government, what better way is there to cut spending than to make it look urgent and necessary?"

Huff Po Slide show

References for each claim, that the link.
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Re: The Republican Record

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More on The Republican Record:

***
"Bloomberg studied the past 50 years of U.S. job creation, under Democratic and Republican presidents. The facts: For the near half-century following the Kennedy administration, Democrats created nearly twice as many private-sector jobs as Republicans. Even though Democrats held the presidency for only 23 years compared with 28 years of Republican rule.

Private-sector payrolls increased by 42 million jobs under Democratic administrations, and 24 million under Republican ones. That’s an average of 150,000 new paychecks a month under Democrats and 71,000 per month under Republicans.

Let’s look at some other indicators. How about investing in the stock market? Again, Bloomberg analyzed the data. Investing $1,000 in a hypothetical fund that tracks the Standard & Poor’s 500 index over the past 50 years would have returned $10,920 when Democrats held the White House. The return when Republicans were in power? $2,087.

Annualized returns were 11 percent for the Democrats, 2.7 percent for the Republicans.

What about gross domestic product growth? Through 2008, real GDP grew faster under Democratic administrations — 4.1 percent to 2.7 percent for the GOP.

Income growth? Under Democrats, the real median income over the past 50 years grew at 2.2 percent. Republicans? 0.6 percent.

Number of Americans in poverty? By now you see the pattern. The poverty rate declined under President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent by 1970.

The rest here...

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Re: The Republican Record

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The Republicans have no credibility on deficits

The Republicans have no credibility on deficits. It's one of those basic political facts, and yet it is not part of the basic political narrative. If it were, the fact that the Republicans have no credibility on deficits would fundamentally change this nation's political dynamics. It would create such fundamentally different national political dynamics that the political fights of the past few weeks not only could not have happened, they would not have been thinkable. The Republicans have no credibility on deficits. The media won't report it, the institutional Democrats are either incapable or unwilling to focus on it, and it therefore falls to us to have the message discipline that will begin to impress it into public consciousness. The Republicans have no credibility on deficits. Repeat it every chance you get. Have the message discipline that institutional Democrats don't have. The Republicans have no credibility on deficits.

When Republicans talk about deficits they are hypocrites and liars. The president and the Democratic leaders in Congress can't speak it that bluntly, but we can. And if we do, perhaps in time the president and the Democratic leaders in Congress will begin to speak it with the less emotionally charged words that the Republicans have no credibility on deficits. Any time a Democrat is on television and is asked about the politics of deficits, the response should begin with the simple message that the Republicans have no credibility on deficits. Any time a Democrat is debating a Republican on television, and the Republican mentions deficits, the response should begin with the simple message that the Republicans have no credibility on deficits. It's easy. It's factual. And with but a bit of message discipline, it could remake the nature of our political system.

Ronald Reagan used the deficit as an issue when he ran against President Carter. As president, Reagan ran up the largest deficit in U.S. history. The Republicans of his era talked a lot about a Balanced Budget Amendment, while consistently voting to run up the largest deficit in U.S. history. Reagan's successor, the heir to the Bush dynasty, outdid his mentor by running up an even larger deficit. President Clinton raised taxes, eliminated the deficit and created a surplus, and just coincidentally oversaw an enormous economic expansion and near full employment. The next heir to the Bush dynasty cut taxes, eviscerated the Clinton surplus, and outdid both his father and Reagan by breaking their records for creating the largest deficits in U.S. history. He also all but broke the economy. This isn't complicated. This isn't difficult to explain. What is difficult to explain is why the Democrats don't do a better and more consistent job of explaining it."

Much more...
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Re: The Republican Record

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Re: The Republican Record

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Link for above, here: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center ... lEcon9.jpg

Where Did the Debt Come From? Excellent video clip: Here.
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Re: The Republican Record

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Re: The Republican Record

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A Case Study of Republicans vs. Democrats on FEMA
By Kevin Drum| Tue Oct. 30
....
The lesson here is simple. At a deep ideological level, Republicans believe that federal bureaucracies are inherently inept, so when Republicans occupy the White House they have no interest in making the federal bureaucracy work.
....
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Re: The Republican Record

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Re: The Republican Record

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Re: The Republican Record

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