Democrats Are Better Than Republicans
1. Historical data from up to 70 years
1. Debt and Deficit. In the past 17 Presidential terms , nine were GOP led and eight Democratic. Of nine GOP Presidents, six added to debt/GDP and deficit/GDP as a percent. The only three that did not, had a Democratic House and Senate. Of eight Democrats, each one, reduced deficit/GDP and debt/GDP as a percent. That is 66 years of rhetoric of fiscal responsibility with zero net results for GOP. What makes matters even worse, is the fact that the president who added a historical 20.7% to the debt has one unique aspect of his presidency – President G. W. Bush had a GOP majority House and Senate.
2. Spending. The Republican Party often talks about financial responsibility, but did you know that since 1978-2011, spending has gone up 9.9% under Democrats versus 12.1% under GOP .
3. Federal Debt. Republicans love to tell us how they will not close tax loopholes on millionaires and billionaires, yet never bring to our attention that from 1978-2011 debt went up 4.2% under Democrats versus 36.4% under the GOP.
4. GDP. The only thing that the Democrats have a higher numerical yield than the GOP led administrations, is the GDP. It’s a good thing to have it at 12.6% versus a GOP 10.7%. From 1960 to 2005 the gross domestic product measured in year-2000 dollars rose an average of $165 billion a year under Republican presidents and $212 billion a year under Democrats.
5. Big Government. Federal spending (aka “big government”): It has gone up an average of about $50 billion a year under presidents of both parties. But that breaks down as $35 billion a year under Democratic presidents and $60 billion under Republicans. If you assume that it takes a year for a president’s policies to take effect, Democrats have raised spending by $40 billion a year and Republicans by $55 billion.
6. Federal Deficit. Under Republican presidents since 1960, the federal deficit has averaged $131 billion a year. Under Democrats, that figure is $30 billion. In an average Republican year, the deficit has grown by $36 billion. In the average Democratic year it has shrunk by $25 billion.
7. National Debt. The national debt has gone up more than $200 billion a year under Republican presidents and less than $100 billion a year under Democrats.
8. Inflation and Unemployment. Democratic presidents have a better record on inflation (averaging 3.13 percent compared with 3.89 percent for Republicans) and on unemployment (5.33 percent versus 6.38 percent). Unemployment went down in the average Democratic year, up in the average Republican one.
Outcome: Based on the data, Democrats have had a much more successful run when it comes to economy, job creation, debt and deficit, and shockingly, even spending.
Plain facts, but what about the qualitative data. Let’s look at some of the best aspects of economy, and drill-down to specific presidencies to see which one added what to the economy. I look at the pivotal economic factors and researched which president added:
1. Greatest gross domestic product (GDP) growth?
2. Biggest jobs increase?
3. Best after-tax personal disposable income rise?
4. Highest industrial production growth?
5. The lowest Misery Index, which is inflation plus unemployment?
6. The lowest inflation?
7. The largest federal budget deficit reduction?
There answers are, if you are done guessing? Okay , here are the answers: 1. Clinton; 2. Truman; 3. Carter; 4. Johnson; 5. Kennedy; 6. Truman; 7. Truman; 8. Clinton.
Outcome: It is also a Democratic sweep.
So, now you are thinking two things. One, this does not mean too much because it takes time for a President’s policies to come into effect and two, what about Obama since this is all in the past?
To address our first question, I gathered this information: First, the analyses presented above took into account the transition time to for policies to kick-in and factored in relative adjustments. Plus, I find it hard to believe that it was just a fluke a that six of nine GOP Presidents failed in terms of GDP and Debt, and not even one of eight Democrats did. So I wanted to look at GOP Presidents that followed at least two GOP terms and Democratic Presidents that followed at least two Democratic terms. Here is the verdict: Truman, who followed two Democratic terms and still succeeded in all areas of economy, while Bush senior, who followed two Republican terms still added to debt and deficit through excessive spending.
Outcome: This highlights an interesting point that somehow Democrats who follow Democrats still outperform economically, and Republicans who followed GOP presidents somehow still failed to perform in absence of policies of the other party impacting them anymore.
Now, the second part, Obama. So, some people who supported him in 2008 are fed up a little. He shows no leadership in the face of stiff tea party politics. But here is the truth about the man who promised you to pass the health care reform, who promised you to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, who promised you that, while it will take time, he will slow down economic failure and he promised you that he will do everything to keep manufacturing jobs in the US. In his defense, he did all of that and then some.
He passed the Health Care Reform Act. He repealed the discriminatory DADT policy. Since he has become president, he has already created more net jobs in his first two years than Bush administration did in 8 years altogether. While GDP growth is slow, it has been positive now for 8 straight quarters since the stimulus was passed, which also worked. Not to mention, Obama inherited an economy in a wreck where the GDP had fallen to over 8.8 percent, the banking industry has just collapsed, two wars were going on for about seven years, and above all, he took over from a President who had raised the debt ceiling a historic, record six times while taking a 53% debt at the beginning of his first term and transforming it into an 84% by the end. According to my research, the Obama administration added more jobs to the economy than eight years of the former President Bush did. The GDP has now been positive for 8 straight quarters bouncing from a negative 8.8%.
Obama extended Bush bailouts and bailed out the auto industry because many US jobs were at risk and our auto industry was soon to become foreign at the hands of global buy outs. Well, this past May, Chrysler paid off its loans . The American auto industry is still American, those jobs in the Mid West still exist. Obama, despite the roughest opposition that any president has faced, still did all he promised. But, here is an eye-opening compilation on more: See what else Obama has done. Also, I must include the fact that we have half as many troops in Iraq, a 2014 plan to be out of Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden is dead. You don’t need a hyperlink for that, do you? Oh, and he also became the first president ever to have to deal with a distraction of proving, through his birth certificate, that he is an American.
I would like to make one more really important point here because a lot of Republicans often cite their desire to vote for GOP candidates despite their stiff opposition to social and civil freedoms in exchange of offering small government. It is a fact that as Americans we are living in the time of the smallest government in half a century. We are paying the lowest taxes, some of the largest free-trade agreements, and a proposal to pay even lower corporate taxes, small business reliefs, and to lower income taxes down from 6.2% offered by President Bush to 3.2% proposed by Obama and the democrats. It is even mentioned in a post at FOX News.
Outcome: The Obama administration has done everything they promised to do when elected, socially and economically. Democrats have failed to improve the economy but have been very successful in creating jobs and avoiding further economic slip. Actually, this administration has now added over three million jobs in 23 straight months of positive employment gains. 2010 and 2011 also mark the first years since 1997 to see positive gains in manufacturing jobs, as shown in this interactive graph. Additionally, March 2012 marks the month in which the Nasdaq hit 3,000 mark for the first time since dot-com bubble. The Dow Jones hit 13,000 for the first time, growing at 63% under Obama which is the fifth best for any president, and the S&P 500 hit 1,400 for the first time since 2008 showing a remarkable economic recovery on the free-floating capital indexes.
Living standard review of GOP vs. Democratic states
Finally, it’s not fair to highlight just money issues. How about the living standards? None of us desire to live in poverty, food scarcity, without health insurance or earn below a minimum wage. Here is an eye-opening part of my analysis that truly shook me.
The worst standards of living are in states that have Republican legislatures. One can argue that it is just that the poor in the deep South that vote a GOP heavy legislature, but when coupled with all the economic statistics listed above, that argument starts to appear very vulnerable. These conservative states have highest poverty levels despite having all GOP fiscal policies in place, for example:
Poverty. Not even one liberal state has over an 18% poverty rate – six GOP states including Texas do.
Labor Abuse. Not even one liberal state has over 8% of its population being abused through earning lower than minimum wage, but nine GOP states do including Texas.
Food Insecurity. Not even one liberal state has over 17% of its population living “food insecure.” Four conservative states do, including Texas.
Healthcare Access. Not even one liberal state has over 20% of population living without health insurance but four GOP states do, again, including Texas.
This study highlights how a huge population of Texans live under an extreme poverty-stricken climate earning below minimum wage, without health insurance access, and without access to daily food while being abused as workers.
Outcome: While GOP policies seem exciting in rhetoric, when given full liberty to implement them through a Republican controlled legislature like the one in the southern states, they are very ineffective. When Democratic financial policies are given full freedom of being implemented, like in the liberal states, they have been much more effective.
I already explained the GOP vs Democrats on social issues in my other post , through which we understand some fundamental differences such as democrats wanting to legalize gay marriage while GOP candidates run clinics to cure gays, GOP candidates working on legislation to criminalize gays and ban gay marriage, GOP legislation to outlaw Islam, and so on and so forth. But, about economic report, here is a recap and conclusion.
1. GOP Presidents have failed, Democrats have not. Historically over last six decades, Democrats have been consistently successful economically, while six of nine Republicans have failed. Keeping in mind the argument that policies of previous administrations haunt the following, the Democrat Truman that followed two Democratic terms still reduced debt and deficit, the Republican, Bush senior, that followed two Republican terms, still added to both.
2. GOP States have lowest living standards, Democratic states do not.
3. Obama has done what he promised and the economy is getting better. It is just hard to climb out of a financial black hole overnight. He still created more jobs than lost, delivered eight straight positive GDP quarters, and the debt that was growing at $3.65 trillion over four years, is now slowed down to about $1.6 trillion. You were not expecting him to change the economy overnight; I know I was not.
4. The GOP offers rhetoric, Democrats offer plans. I will really back this one for you through solid examples. Remember the debt crisis? Democrats took into account an earlier GOP report in which the GOP stated that the most optimum for economic growth is a deficit reduction plan that has an 85-15 split between cuts and revenues. Democrats offered an 83-17 with $6 in cuts for just $1 in return in tax loophole expiration on millionaires and billionaires. It was a mammoth $4 trillion debt reduction offer. The GOP walked away from it, and failed to offer an alternative. Similarly, remember Heathcare reform? Democrats took a major step by offering a plan under which most Americans would be covered, people would be allowed to stay on parents’ insurance after college graduation, insurance companies will no longer be able to increase cost or drop people after an illness, neither will they be able to refuse insurance to people with a preexisting condition. The GOP is currently running on an agenda to repeal that. The GOP alternative? It does not exist.
5. Democrats are willing to sacrifice, the GOP has evolved into a party of “Always No”. The shared Retirement Sacrifice Act of 2011 , which would require lawmakers to wait until the age of 66 to collect their pensions and take a pay cut has been introduced by an Ohio Democrat. Her logic is that congress should also take a pay cut and delayed retirement like other Americans do. Do you know why her simple bill is not passing? The GOP has it blocked. Additionally, as the Democrats fight to raise the age and reduce benefits for themselves and their GOP peers, Rep. John Fleming (LA), a republican responded to a proposed tax loophole expiration on millionaires and billionaires by saying that “by the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over.” Thus, fighting against another democratic plan.
6. Democrats reform, GOP wants to take a step back without reform. Last election Democrats offered ideas that would alter the future such as Healthcare reform, the repeal of don’t ask don’t tell, creation of anti-discriminatory laws, Postal Services Reform which is happening right now, lower taxes on small businesses, tax write-offs on first 104K paid in employee salary for large businesses, and increase education funding to keep America’s edge. Have you notices the GOP platform this year? It has been: Repeal Healthcare reform, repeal the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, ban gay marriage, ban building of Islamic religious institutions, block tax reform on millionaires and billionaires, block the jobs act, block deficit reduction plans, abolish the Department of Education, and abolish the EPA. Do you notice a trend? It’s a step back through repeal without alternatives or abolishing of institutions without an alternative plan.
Certainly, I understand these are politics, and all GOP donations come from big businesses but to letting America’s credit rating fall to protect millionaires and billionaires just because the 2012 election is on the horizon is probably not the best approach for America. While a Democratic donation averages $69 and comes from every day Americans, GOP donations average large sums from huge lobby groups and in order to be competitive the GOP has to protect its interests. But at the end of the day, we hire politicians not to win but to make America succeed. I want you to take these facts into account, remember, you are the CEO and you have a choice to make. I exhort you to make that choice keeping our social freedoms and financial facts into account.
I exhort you to educate yourself. When the GOP tells you that they want to lower taxes on millionaires and billionaires and cut education funding and corporate regulations to help the economy grow, understand that capitalism is not pro-business, it is pro-consumer. Businesses thrive with regulation and demand it. Understand that the GOP wants to cut educational funding because we see a direct link between higher education and an increase in more liberal voting patterns. Please understand that tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires do not funnel into an economic spur, as one of the best investors Warren Buffet, who saved GE, Goldman Sachs, and now the Bank of America from a colossal collapse explains
I have presented you past data, current policies, poverty statistics, and current party agendas. I wanted to just ask myself one last litmus test question. What have GOP and Democratic states added to America to see what kind of societies GOP versus Democratic governments create? If GOP economics really work, then we should see them work in states where we vote GOP legislatures and vice versa for Democratic states.
From the entertainment industry based in California to IT in Silicon Valley, each one of the Ivy League schools to Health Care and Life Sciences industry based in Philadelphia-NJ area, from banking based in NYC to the services hub in Boston, and all the way down to high-tech in Seattle, almost all of America’s progress comes from liberal states. But what is even more shocking is that a lot of southern progress happened in places like Atlanta, with large telecommunications’ industry development post 1996 Olympics, where about majority of Atlanta’s population is liberal and ascends from the north east. The truth is, this alone is a litmus test. Democrats have financially outperformed GOP governments economically and are offering actual plans as opposed to simple repeal ideas. Republicans have carved societies that are drastically behind in economic, living standards, or academic progress.
