Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Who are the fiscal conservatives?

Lets compare a few presidential administration's record on the economy. Bill Clinton (D) left an economy that  created more then 22 million jobs. Median incomes were up, poverty rates were at their lowest levels in decades. Unemployment fell from 7% to 4%. He left office with a $200 billion surplus. When George W came into office  his  priorities was  major tax cuts (7). This decreased tax receipts to 17.9% of GDP compared to 19% under Clinton. He not only used up the surplus left to him by Clinton, but by the end of his term in office he had increased the federal deficit to $700B. ($2.5 trillion increase in the public debt through 2008) He left office with the US and World economy was falling into the Great Recession. Retail sales were at their lowest in 35 years, The housing market was busted. When President Obama took office in 2008 the stock market had begun its fall, by March of 2009 the DOW was below 6K.  The Obama stimulus plan would cost  $168 billion. This on the heals of W. Bush's stimulus plan increased the national debt to 1T. This stimulus plan has doubled the DOW up to 12K, retail sales are up 31% as of Jan 2010. Unemployment is starting to go down with the private sector adding jobs for the first time since the start of the Great Recession. The diffusion index — the percentage of industries that were adding workers — increased to 68.2% in February, the highest in 13 years. People applying for unemployment is at three year low.  The Congressional Budget Office  estimated that between 1.4 million and 3.4 million workers who have jobs would be unemployed if the stimulus hadn’t been enacted. 
So when we look at the facts, how on Earth did the republicans become the party of fiscal responsibility?? 

2 comments:

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  2. I don't think they were ever the party of fiscal responsibility. I think they just have better sound bites (and Fox news).

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