For all the talk about being pro-business, you'd think the Republicans would have some straightforward, simple-to-point to economic accomplishments. But they don't.
The president goes around touting a non-farm payroll number of 144,000 as job creation, when 150,000 is the replacement jobs level, so anything less than that represents an increase in unemployment.
It is the responsibility of the president of the United to States to own up to and admit that his tax cuts have utterly failed to create jobs as he promised they would, and as he claims even today that they are. This will be the only administration in our lifetimes (or our father's and mother's lifetimes) to see a net loss of jobs.
Recession is essentially a Republican-led phenomenon and relatively rare when Democrats are in the White House. The data all show this. It's not something that's really debateable. There is simply no way to slice the economic figures to show that Republican presidents don't kill growth.
There are many ways to slice the data to show that Democrats are better at managing the economy. Here's one:
Average annual GDP growth
Bush 43: 2.52%
Clinton: 3.62%
Reagan/Bush: 2.71%
Carter: 3.33%
Nixon/Ford 3.02%
Johnson 5.30%
Without exception in the past half century, growth has slowed when a Republican took over from a Democrat and speeded up when a Democrat took over from a Republican.
Bush 43 is merely the most dramatic case of a long-standing pattern.
Unemployment averages are dramatically higher under Republican presidents and personal income growth lags under GOP administrations. Deficits soar under Republicans and the Dow Jones Industrial Average underperforms
Some claim that the Bush recession isn't really Bush's fault. They throw out budget timelines, after effects of previous administrations and even say it is just a case of bad luck - you know, 9-11 and everything. But all these happened on his watch. The captain of any ship with such bad luck would be relieved of duty in the blink of an eye.
Why is the Dow down twice as much under Bush as under Carter? Stock prices have nothing whatsoever to do with budget timing - they are the purest representation of economic expectations and they show beyond a shadow of a doubt that the people who have money to bet are betting that Bush will continue to kill growth. I think a lot of investors don't believe Bush will wrap up the Iraq war and they don't believe Bush will cut spending.
Economic growth since 1945 has been markedly slower under Republican administrations than Democratic ones. It's a simple, verifiable fact. Twelve straight quarters of growth under Bush is markedly slower less than Clinton's 8 straight years of economic growth. Just as growth in the Reagan/Bush/Nixon years averaged considerably less than that under Carter/Clinton.
It is certainly possible that one president could hit a patch of bad luck. This is why it's important to look at the data going back 50 years. The odds are small that a whole series of Republican administrations got hit by bad economic luck. A much more likely explanation is that Republican presidents make bad policy decisions.
There is no doubt that tax cuts for the wealthy can increase investment faster than tax cuts for those earning $35,000 or less. The working poor don't invest too much - they're too busy trying to live month-to-month. But when the tax cuts do not spur growth or are not invested, it's time to stop them and consider the debt and deficit.
The biggest surplus in the history of the U.S. was not invested in improving the lives of Americans by this administration. The biggest surplus in history was squandered into the biggest deficit in history.
And don't forget that all that money is yours. You worked hard to earn that money to give to your government in the form of taxes. Every administration must invest it properly in the best interest of all Americans or face the consequences at the ballot box.
(I can't wait to be in one of these presidential debates about 12 years from now...)
