I will add a few links putting this back on track with Dem and GOP economic policies and economic performances under GOP presidents.
Dr. Larry Bartel of Princeton has just recently completed a paper on income inequality by president. He looked at income growth by income quintile. Unless you are in the top 20% you should really want a Democratic president. http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/income.pdf Kevin Drum echoes my conclusions: Conservatives drive up income inequality because they focus primarily on the well off, which benefits only the well off. Liberals keep income inequality in check because they focus (or *should* focus) primarily on the working and middle classes, which benefits everyone. And *that's*the underlying reason that Democratic presidents are better for the economy than Republican presidents. If you keep the unemployment level low and middle class incomes growing, the rest of the economy will pretty much take care of itself. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_05/006286.php The results are simple: Democratic presidents have consistently higher economic growth and consistently lower unemployment than Republican presidents. If you add in a time lag, you get the same result. If you eliminate the best and worst presidents, you get the same result. If you take a look at other economic indicators, you get the same result. There's just no way around it: Democratic administrations are better for the economy than Republican administrations. Skeptics offer two arguments: first, that presidents don't control the economy; second, that there are too few data points to draw any firm conclusions. Neither argument is convincing. It's true that presidents don't control the economy, but they *do* influence it — as everyone tacitly acknowledges by fighting like crazed banshees over every facet of fiscal policy ever offered up by a president. The second argument doesn't hold water either. The dataset that delivers these results now covers more than 50 years, 10 administrations, and half a dozen different measures. That's a fair amount of data, and the results are awesomely consistent: Democrats do better no matter what you measure, how you measure it, or how you fiddle with the data. Kevin also presents the most unusual finding - the GOP finally gets an economic act together only in election years. The income for all classes improves during the GOP election years even if more for the top 20%. In non-election years the Democrats clearly have better growth. But it is time to get re-elected and the GOP finally remembers that voters vote their pocketbooks. So a question might be what is happening to the Democratic growth engine when they really need it? Bartels doesn't essay an explanation for this. Do Republican presidents deliberately try to time economic growth spurts — and are Democratic presidents too lame to do the same? Is it just luck? Or is the difference somehow inherent in the different ways that Democrats and Republicans approach the economy (with Democrats typically focusing on employment and Republicans on inflation)? At this point, your guess is as good as anyone's. Bottom line: if you're well off, vote for Republicans. But if you make less than $150,000 a year, Republicans are your friends only one year in four. Caveat emptor. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_05/006282.php This follows Kinsley's reporting a month ago on the Dems being more GOP than the GOP. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-kinsley3apr03,0,6929691.column?coll=la-util-op-ed The stock market also prefers Democrats to Republicans. http://slate.msn.com/default.aspx?id=2071929 -- Gary Denton Easter Lemming Blogs http://elemming.blogspot.com http://elemming2.blogspot.com
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