OBAMA vs. REAGAN on GDP GROWTH — NOT EVEN CLOSE Jim Hoft Apr 29th, 2015 10:30 am 1551 Comments Obama’s just like Reagan… Except when he isn’t. Trickle Down Economics versus Trickle Down Socialism Ronald Reagan’s economic plan saw GDP surge at a 3.5% clip – 4.9% after the recession. That’s a 32% bump. During the Obama years, thanks to his big government policies, the US economy has stalled. Today the quarterly GDP was announced. The GDP for the first quarter of 2015 braked more sharply than expected at only a .2% pace. The US economy has grown an anemic 9.6% during the Obama years (excluding today’s dismal number). Of course, Obama’s record on job growth is also much worse than President Reagan’s record. Net job growth has declined under Obama. By the end of the second year of their terms as president, economic growth under Reagan averaged 7.1% , under Obama an anemic 2.8%. (IJ Review) And today, more than five years into the tepid recovery, labor-force participation remains at its lowest level since 1978 during the Carter years.
Yeah, the economy is very bad. Obama did nothing to reverse the decline. He's one of the worst presidents in our history.
One of? I can't name one worse. He has screwed up the economy. He has screwed up the military. He has screwed up our foreign relations. And, like no other president, he has divided our nation.
We've never had such a state of prolonged misery like we've seen under the BO administration. It seems, under BO, that light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train!
US budget deficit smallest in 8 years, 10/15/15, 9:33 PM ET Deficit shrinks by $1 trillion in Obama era 10/15/15 04:37 PM—UPDATED 10/16/15 06:28 PM 26 share group 706 By Steve Benen In the not-too-distant past, talk in the political world of the U.S. budget deficit was all the rage. As the Tea Party “movement” took shape, conservatives quite literally took to the streets to express their fear that President Obama and Democrats were failing to address the “out of control” deficit. Congressional Republicans agreed. As recently as 2013, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was asked about the radicalism of his political agenda and he responded, “[W]hat I would say is extreme is a trillion-dollar deficit every year.” Around the same time, then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) argued that Congress should be “focused on trying to deal with the ultimate problem, which is this growing deficit.” The Republican rhetoric was ridiculously wrong. We don’t have a trillion-dollar deficit; the deficit isn’t the ultimate problem; and it’s not growing. Strong growth in individual tax collection drove the U.S. budget deficit to a fresh Obama-era low in fiscal 2015, the Treasury Department said Thursday. For the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 the shortfall was $439 billion, a decrease of 9%, or $44 billion, from last year. The deficit is the smallest of Barack Obama’s presidency and the lowest since 2007 in both dollar terms and as a percentage of gross domestic product. Keep in mind, in the Obama era, the deficit has shrunk by $1 trillion. That’s “trillion,” with a “t.” As a percentage of the economy, the deficit is now down to just 2.5%, which is below the average of the past half-century, and down from 9.8% when the president took office. 73% of the public believes the deficit has gotten bigger over the last six years. The year before, the same pollster found that only 6% of Americans realized the deficit was shrinking. It helps explain why the president hasn’t gotten any credit for deficit reduction, which seems like the sort of development Tea Partiers and the Beltway’s Very Serious People should consider an extraordinary accomplishment. As we talked about last year, it’s tempting to conclude that the public’s confusion doesn’t matter. In the Clinton era, the deficit disappeared entirely, and Americans had no idea. But there’s another side to this. Whether or not Americans know and/or understand the basics of the fiscal argument may not have a practical impact on the debate itself, but the fact remains that voters are ultimately responsible for electing policymakers. If Americans believe, incorrectly, that the deficit is getting bigger, these same voters may be inclined to vote for candidates who’ll slash public investments and undermine social-insurance programs – which would have real-world consequences. Postscript: To reiterate a point that bears repeating, I don’t necessarily consider this sharp reduction in the deficit to be good news. If it were up to me, federal officials would be borrowing more, not less, taking advantage of low interest rates, investing heavily in infrastructure and economic development, creating millions of jobs, and leaving deficit reduction for another day. That said, if we’re going to have a fiscal debate, it should at least be rooted in reality, not silly misconceptions. And the reality is, we’re witnessing deficit reduction at a truly remarkable clip. Every conservative complaint about fiscal recklessness and irresponsibility in the Obama era is quantifiably ridiculous.
