Liberal Forum

GeorgeWashington » 08 Mar 2014 8:36 am » wrote:Ranking the Presidents by G.D.P.

There is an element of unfairness in attributing economic growth to a president, of course. The government has limited influence on the economy, and the president can have limited influence on government policy, as anyone watching the current debate in Washington has surely noticed. Normal economic cycles mean that growth is likely to be less impressive for a president who enters office at the end of a boom, as George W. Bush did, and better for one who enters when growth is weak, as Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan did. If normal cyclical factors return, and President Obama has a second term, his record should end up much better than it currently appears. If he loses, he could be like Gerald Ford, who also took office during a deep recession.

With all those caveats, here are the annualized growth rates for real G.D.P. for every president who took office after the end of World War II.

Each president is given credit for growth through the quarter before he left office. For those who left at the end of their terms, that would be the fourth quarter of the election year. For Richard M. Nixon, who resigned during the third quarter of 1974, it is through the second quarter of that year.

Also shown are the figures for Presidents Bush and Obama that would have appeared had the numbers been calculated before today’s announcement of second quarter data and revisions to earlier numbers.

They are listed in reverse order of growth.

Barack Obama, 1.2% annual G.D.P. growth rate (previously 1.5%)
George W. Bush, 1.6% (previously 1.7%)
George H.W. Bush, 2.1%
Gerald Ford, 2.2%
Dwight Eisenhower, 2.5%
Richard Nixon, 3.0%
Jimmy Carter, 3.2%
Ronald Reagan, 3.5%
Bill Clinton, 3.8%
Lyndon B. Johnson, 5.0%
John F. Kennedy, 5.4%

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/ ... blogs&_r=0

Let me see if I get what you're supplying to the conversation:

You are saying that Cater walloped all five of the republicans who served before him following the conclusion of WWII, and was only ever beaten by the very slgihtest of edges (3/10ths of a percent) by ONE republican - a man who borrowed during his tenure more than half of the entire GDP in the year that he was elected?

WOWZA! Thank you for that support! I am actually PLEASED that there was finally one measure which, no matter how insignificantly or by what razor-thin margin, Reagan bested Carter. I mean, let's face it:

Jobs? Carter.
Shrinking government? Carter.
Civil rights/CIA prevented from spying on our own citizens? Carter.
Avoiding international conflict/dead troops? Carter.
Fiscal discipline? Carter.
Shrinking debt to GDP ratio? Carter.
No drug dealing by CIA? Carter.
No selling of WMDs to Iran? Carter.
No training, funding, creating of Al Qaida? Carter.
No supplying Saddam with WMDs to use on the Kurds? Carter.
No raping nuns, murdering priests or high-tailing it out of Lebanon in a cut-and-run? Carter.
Keeping his vice president honest, steering clear of the Medellin cartel, other unsavories? Carter.
No Major Flagg types snappy-saluting and Fawn Halling in the Whitehouse basement? Carter.
HONEST, FORTHRIGHT communication with the folks? Carter.
Protecting Social Security in a lock box? Carter.

Reagan's razor thin victory over Carter (3/10ths of a percent) - his ONLY success in any honest comparison of their records - came at the cost of the unborn.



Reagan cut top tax rates while saying of our school children, "Let them eat ketchup." Cutting taxes while increasing spending - a republican habit that has resulted in ALL of America's republican presidents being bigger borrowers that the democrats they followed since WWII - is not good government. It's POLITICS: "Hey, I'm your buddy - the Candy Man." Whatever you need, good old Uncle Sugar will provide - and your grand kids get the tab.

I don't think much of dems, but at least they have the balls to ask TODAY'S voters to pay a bigger piece of today's spending than they palm off on the precious, precious unborn. Reagan was the FIRST PRESIDENT SINCE WWII to increase the debt to GDP ratio, and the biggest borrower in history to that time.

FDR borrowed an average of 21 billion per year to get us out of a global depression and then fight history's biggest war ever. And that money was in the form of war bonds, purchased by AMERICAN CITIZENS, not multinational corporations - and not a penny of it stolen from Social Security.

Reagan? He borrowed 231 billion per year - the ENTIRE NATIONAL DEBT at the end of WWII, - every stinking year of his tenure, just to keep his corporate masters from paying their share on the windfalls he engineered for them through crony capitalism.



And that's just the money he BORROWED. Let's discuss the money he STOLE. The Social Security Amendment of 1983 was rammed through congress as a 30 year "fix" for social security. Instead, it was a tax hike on working people. In 1983, Reagan ginned up a panic that Social Security might be in trouble. He hiked withholding rates to the highest in history - punishing labor while cutting taxes on capital - and he KEPT THE SURPLUS. It was not deposited into the SSA account, and used to buy T-Bills. No. It was flat-out stolen and spirited directly into the treasury, to replace the money the richest were no longer contributing. He did it again in 1984. and in 1985. Then 86, 87 and 88. His first two years were the only two that he did not steal the ENTIRE SURPLUS from Social Security - after raising the rate.

What a rat Reagan was. That Johny Hinckley seemed like such a nice boy.