Dems take over Congress

[2centsworth]

and economy has gone downhill ever since. The Economic Numbers are shocking when you compare pre-democrat congress to post-democrat congress.

We got change all right.

[tonylongoriafan]

that appears to be the case

[George Gervin's Afro]

and economy has gone downhill ever since. The Economic Numbers are shocking when you compare pre-democrat congress to post-democrat congress.

We got change all right.

Their economic policy that started 7 yrs agohas ruined this country. Oh wait... they have been around 1.5 of those years. Wait a minute didn't the GOP have control for 6 of those years? :rolleyes

[Viva Las Espuelas]

Their economic policy that started 7 yrs agohas ruined this country. Oh wait... they have been around 1.5 of those years. Wait a minute didn't the GOP have control for 6 of those years? :rolleyesrepublicans were in control of congress during most of clinton's suck-off terms.

[balli]

Dumbass: http://www.slate.com/id/2199810/


Politicians Lie, Numbers Don't- And the numbers show that Democrats are better for the economy than Republicans.

If you're wondering why a formerly honorable man like John McCain would build his presidential campaign around issues that are simultaneously beside-the-point, trivial, and dishonest (sex education for kindergartners, lipstick on pigs), the numbers presented here may help to solve that mystery. Since the conventions ended, McCain has mired the presidential race in dishonest trivia because he doesn't want it to focus on what voters say is the most important issue this year: the economy.

There is no secret about any of this. The figures below are all from the annual Economic Report of the President, and the analysis is primitive. Nevertheless, what these numbers show almost beyond doubt is that Democrats are better at virtually every economic task that is important to Republicans.

In other words, there are no figures here about income inequality, or percentage of the population with health insurance, or anything like that. This exercise implicitly assumes that lower taxes are always good and higher government spending is always bad. There is nothing here about how clean the air is or how many children are growing up in poverty. The only point is that if you find the Republican mantra of lower taxes and smaller government appealing, and if you care only about how fast the economy is growing, not how that growth is shared, you should vote Democratic. Of course, if you do care about things like economic inequality and children's health, you should vote Democratic as well.


At this point, if you're interested in reality, you need to go to the URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2199810/ and look at the flash chart I couldn't paste here. And remember, these numbers are from Bush's own economic report.



Tab 1 reports the performance of the U.S. economy in seven categories from the years 1959 to 2007. (Where the President's Economic Report doesn't include figures for 1959 or 2007, those years are left out.) The most important measure of a nation's economic strength is gross domestic product. But comparing GDPs among various presidents would be unfair. Since the economy does tend to grow over time (or always has), more recent presidents would enjoy an unfair advantage. And every president inherits a situation; the question is what he does with it.

So the measure I use is "Change in Real GDP Per Capita," which corrects for inflation and also for population growth. It asks: If the output of the economy were divided equally among the population, how would each share have changed during these years?

Of the other measures, inflation is self-explanatory. So is unemployment. Federal taxes, spending, and the deficit are recorded as percentages of GDP: What part of the nation's economic output is commandeered by the government each year? How much of that does the government actually pay for, and how much does it finance by borrowing? And since defense spending is the one exception to the general dislike for government, figures are included for federal spending minus defense. At the bottom of Chart 1 is the average per year for every year of roughly the past half-century. I haven't cheated: These are the years the President's Economic Report reports.

The results are surprising, I think. Tab 2 and Tab 3 figure separately the averages for years with Republican presidents and years with Democratic ones. Then Tab 4 compares those averages. On average, in years when the president is a Democrat, the economy grows faster; inflation is lower; fewer people can't find a job; the federal government spends a smaller share of GDP, whether or not you include defense spending; and the deficit is lower (or—sweet Clinton-years memory—the surplus is higher). The one category that Republicans win is, unsurprisingly, federal taxes as a share of GDP. But it is no trick to lower taxes if you don't lower spending.

Among many objections that could be made to this calculation, some of them legitimate, one is that a president's economic policy doesn't work overnight. To account for that, Tab 5 goes back and recalculates everything with a one-year lag. That is, if George W. Bush's father was president in the years 1989 through 1992, inclusive (was he? Hard to believe …), his years of economic impact are assumed to be 1990 through 1993. This changes the result remarkably little. Republicans win in two of the seven categories, with a tiny .01 percent lead in lower inflation.

Some people believe that the president has little or no effect on the economy. If so, that would be a serious flaw in this exercise. But it would also be a serious flaw in the exercise called democracy, since people tell pollsters that the economy is the most important issue for them in deciding whom to vote for. No doubt any particular bad year in any of these statistics can be explained by some extrinsic special event—a war, for example. But surely patterns that emerge over half a century account for these. At some point, if Republicans or Democrats tend to start more wars, and wars cost money, that can be a legitimate part of the calculation.

Finally, as economist Greg Mankiw points out in his blog, reacting to a similar calculation by Alan Blinder (both of them former chairs of the president's Council of Economic Advisers), correlation is not causation. Maybe economic statistics are better when the president is a Democrat for reasons having nothing to do with the president's skill in handling the economy. My own feeling about that is that as long as the pattern continues, who cares why? Correlation will do just fine.

[2centsworth]

since bush has been president he has had a republican congress and a democrat congress. Since the democrats have come into power, the crap has hit the fan. plus, I think it was intentional.

[balli]

since bush has been president he has had a republican congress and a democrat congress. Since the democrats have come into power, the crap has hit the fan. plus, I think it was intentional.

You are an ideologue and a fool. If you want to talk economics cite some numbers, forget this fly by the seat of your fucked up pants observation shit.

[KenMcCoy]

You are an ideologue and a fool. If you want to talk economics cite some numbers, forget this fly by the seat of your fucked up pants observation shit.

Economies take many years to be affected by changes in economic policy.

The Fannie/Freddie/AIG downfalls are mostly tied to foreclosures on subprime loans. The below graph shows subprime loan growth after Clinton (a Democrat in case you forgot) repealed the Glass-Stegall act in 1997. The changes that he made are just now affecting the economy...


http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z167/liberalamerican/sumbprimemarketgraph.jpg

http://www.progressivehistorians.com/2007/11/bill-clintons-role-in-mortgage-crisis.html

Using this Cause/Effect analysis one could argue that Clinton enjoyed the successes of the Reagan/HW Bush economic policies and that W Bush has had to deal with the errors of the Clinton administration economic policies.

[Anti.Hero]

Their economic policy that started 7 yrs agohas ruined this country. Oh wait... they have been around 1.5 of those years. Wait a minute didn't the GOP have control for 6 of those years? :rolleyes

Only started 7 yrs ago LOL.


Our CHICKEEEENNNNSSSSSS have come homeeeee to roooOOOOOOSSSSSSTTTTTtttt


Seriously, it's okay to hate Bush and blame him. He deserves a HELL of a lot of blame even if you forget the entire Iraqi War! But you will just look like another partisan hack nut if you can't admit anywhere close to the entire story. How can we ever get anywhere close to fixing shit if no one can get past the first step of admitting two parties are one in the same.

Has Obama, the agent of change, the guy who will fix broken Washington, condemned those democrats who have profited off Freddie/Fannie/and others during this whole ordeal? Does that not make you question reality?

[balli]

Economies take many years to be affected by changes in economic policy.

The Fannie/Freddie/AIG downfalls are mostly tied to foreclosures on subprime loans. The below graph shows subprime loan growth after Clinton (a Democrat in case you forgot) repealed the Glass-Stegall act in 1997. The changes that he made are just now affecting the economy...


http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z167/liberalamerican/sumbprimemarketgraph.jpg

http://www.progressivehistorians.com/2007/11/bill-clintons-role-in-mortgage-crisis.html

Using this Cause/Effect analysis one could argue that Clinton enjoyed the successes of the Reagan/HW Bush economic policies and that W Bush has had to deal with the errors of the Clinton administration economic policies.
That's all fine and good, but you'll notice, when the numbers really jump is when Greenspan (under Bush II) started slashing the federal interest rate in 2003. All those bad loans have a whole hell of a lot more to do with the fed's rates under Bush than they do the repeal of the Glass-Stegall act. In fact in 2003, they skyrocket, so clearly the incentive for high risk loans was the low rates under Bush's fed chief.

[boutons_]

if this logic holds, then you MUST agree with the findings, for the past 60 years, that growth and jobs increased more under Dem administrations than under Repug administrations.

[KenMcCoy]

That's all fine and good, but you'll notice, when the numbers really jump is when Greenspan (under Bush II) started slashing the federal interest rate in 2003. All those bad loans have a whole hell of a lot more to do with the fed's rates under Bush than they do the repeal of the Glass-Stegall act. In fact in 2003, they skyrocket, so clearly the incentive for high risk loans was the low rates under Bush's fed chief.

So you agree that it usually takes years for the full effect of changes in economic policy (either interest rate cuts, higher/lower tax rates or new legislation) to be seen in the economy as a whole.

[MannyIsGod]

and economy has gone downhill ever since. The Economic Numbers are shocking when you compare pre-democrat congress to post-democrat congress.

We got change all right.

This is the most intellectually dishonest thing I've ever seen you post man. Are you trolling?

[balli]

So you agree that it usually takes years for the full effect of changes in economic policy (either interest rate cuts, higher/lower tax rates or new legislation) to be seen in the economy as a whole.

Not enough that you can blame the Democrats for Bush's economic policy or interest rates on loans. And you definitely can't blame them for Bush's huge and record federal budget deficits (which are another matter). I would agree that there might be a lag in terms of economic benefits/damage catalyzed by specific action in terms of tax-cuts/raises, etc, but according to the chart you posted, this sub-prime mess has very little to do with the repeal of Glass-Stegall and everything to do with the low lending rate under Bush. From 1997-2003 the annual loan volume went up, but not nearly as much as it did from 03-current. That can't be put on the changes taking time- that argument is best left for infusions of cash or taxes into the markets- The skyrocket in 03-current has nothing to do with the Glass-Stegall repeal; otherwise, the loan volume would've gone up staggeringly from day 1 in 1997. It's not like nobody noticed the act was gone until Bush came into office. It did go up some in 97-03, but what really caused loan volumes to go up in 03 (and put us in the huge economic bind today) was Bush's rates and there is no way you can accurately blame that on the Democrats.

[MannyIsGod]

The root of today's economic problems go back to the late 90s and the thought of having an American government goal of having every American family owning a home. Not a good idea, and the policies stemming from that point have put us in this position when combined with idiocy on Wall Street.

[KenMcCoy]

The root of today's economic problems go back to the late 90s and the thought of having an American government goal of having every American family owning a home. Not a good idea, and the policies stemming from that point have put us in this position when combined with idiocy on Wall Street.

+1:toast

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Their economic policy that started 7 yrs agohas ruined this country. Oh wait... they have been around 1.5 of those years. Wait a minute didn't the GOP have control for 6 of those years? :rolleyes

Pelosi and her crew said back in 2006 that they'd fix it all if given the chance.

Who knew by fix she meant fuck it up even more.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

The root of today's economic problems go back to the late 90s and the thought of having an American government goal of having every American family owning a home. Not a good idea, and the policies stemming from that point have put us in this position when combined with idiocy on Wall Street.

Solid take Manny. Of course, we still have a liberal Congress who has made this a focal point and even touched on racism towards those who oppose this policy platform.

[Ocotillo]

things have really gone to hell since McCain picked Palin. :rollin

[TheMadHatter]

This is a joke right?

[scott]

When the Economy was going south right after Bush took office, it was Clinton's fault because he policies were just taking effect ("these things have a lag you know" we were told).

When the Economy went south after the Democrats took control of congress, it was their fault ("see, they took over and shit hit the fan!!!" we are told).

I see a common trend.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

When the Economy was going south right after Bush took office, it was Clinton's fault because he policies were just taking effect ("these things have a lag you know" we were told).

When the Economy went south after the Democrats took control of congress, it was their fault ("see, they took over and shit hit the fan!!!" we are told).

I see a common trend.

Both sides are responsible. That's the trend. Democrats are blaming Bush for everything (and now Obama's blaming McCain), when they've had two years during which they told the nation they were going to fix shit. It's just getting worse.

But did anyone expect anything different? Obama was getting fed cash left and right from Fannie and Freddie lobbyists, he sure as fuck wasn't going to do anything to try and stop them running around out of control.

[scott]

The trend continues.

[whottt]

When the Economy was going south right after Bush took office, it was Clinton's fault because he policies were just taking effect ("these things have a lag you know" we were told).

The economy was going South because by then everyone had a PC and windows. It was entirely the tech sector that drove the stock boom
(and the economic boom) of the 90's...it was a technological revolution.

The fact that you expected the economic growth to continue at that rate is absurd. People stopped buying that stuff at the same rate...that's why it stopped growing at the same rate.


Why don't you check the market cap and growth rate of Microsoft, HP, Dell, Intel, even Compaq(prior to the purchase of Digital and pre HP merger) in the 90's vs when Bush took office.




When the Economy went south after the Democrats took control of congress, it was their fault ("see, they took over and shit hit the fan!!!" we are told).

I see a common trend.


Dude...they are the ones that pushed for financing for low income families, that is the A#1 thing that caused Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buckele...and Obama is provably on the take from them, and the EIC of Fannie Mae is on Obama's fucking staff.

That is a clear money trail there...


You've even got McCain saying in 05, Raines was buying off congressmen to keep the Government out of their hair.




Look...the primary culprits here are the buyers who bought these homes..but don't act like the Democrats weren't driving this coach, and raiding it, and they knew they'd stick the tax payers with the bill for it.


It's ridiculous to not see the direct roll the Democratic Congress and Raines played in this, and there is a clear record of McCain speaking out against it.


How can you ignore this evidence? This isn't sound bites or guilt by associatoon...this is a clear money trail.

[2centsworth]

When the Economy was going south right after Bush took office, it was Clinton's fault because he policies were just taking effect ("these things have a lag you know" we were told).

the technology bubbled burst in 5/2000, pre-bush.



When the Economy went south after the Democrats took control of congress, it was their fault ("see, they took over and shit hit the fan!!!" we are told).

I see a common trend.

change is a wonderful thing.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

and economy has gone downhill ever since. The Economic Numbers are shocking when you compare pre-democrat congress to post-democrat congress.

We got change all right.


Deregulation legislation was put through late december of 1999, in a republican controlled congress, so, keep digging, maybe you'll find facts that actually support your generalization.

Many democrat politicians spoke out against deregulation, which pretty much was the spark that started all this mess.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Pelosi and her crew said back in 2006 that they'd fix it all if given the chance.

Who knew by fix she meant fuck it up even more.

Show me what legislation has been passed in the democratic "controlled" congress, and links supporting your claim how it fucked up a fucked up situation even more, and I'll put an Aggie Gig 'Em in my sig.

[2centsworth]

Deregulation legislation was put through late december of 1999, in a republican controlled congress, so, keep digging, maybe you'll find facts that actually support your generalization.

Many democrat politicians spoke out against deregulation, which pretty much was the spark that started all this mess.

If you are right, and I'm not saying you are, why didn't the new dem congress introduce a bill to regulate?

[boutons_]

"If you are right, and I'm not saying you are, why didn't the new dem congress introduce a bill to regulate?"

why didn't Repugs pre-9/11 build up the military since they knew since the last 90s that they were going to invade Iraq?

If the Repugs are serious on NatSec, why did they do nothing about terror and al Quaida before 9/11?

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Wake up and realize both parties are culprit to this mess. There were people who spoke the truth on both sides, but when it came down to the vote, pretty much everything that has been put into effect has been pushing towards this inevitable economic clusterfuck. This goes back to 1999, onwards when oversight of the agencies that rated the securities was laxed, etc etc

there was no one bill or person or party that caused this

[Nbadan]

If you are right, and I'm not saying you are, why didn't the new dem congress introduce a bill to regulate?

.....because the GOP has become the party of obstructionists....they've blocked more legislation that would bring regulation back into the markets than any other minority party on record....

[2centsworth]

.....because the GOP has become the party of obstructionists....they've blocked more legislation that would bring regulation back into the markets than any other minority party on record....
:lmao:lmao:lmao

[Nbadan]

:rolleyes

Let's see if people think it's funny when they vote more Republicans back home from Washington in 08, just like in 06...


Republican Obstructionism Breaks Congressional Record
December 20, 2007 12:50 PM


As this year's congressional session closes out, obstructionism by the Republican minority reached a fever pitch and effectively stymied much of the Democrats' legislative program. In just the past few weeks alone, two bills that made up a major part of the Democratic agenda were killed through GOP parliamentary maneuvers.

On December 7, Republicans derailed an energy bill that would have reduced dependence on foreign oil, by denying it the 60 votes it needed to make it through the Senate. Democrats were forced to pass a watered-down measure. A few days later, a bill that would have expanded government-provided health insurance for children made it through the Senate but succumbed to President Bush's veto.

The two episodes underscored what has become an epidemic of gridlock within the halls of government. Indeed, a recent study by the progressive-research organization, Campaign for America's Future, claims that "conservatives in the U.S. Senate" have set a "modern-day record for obstruction." Only half way through the 110th Congress there have been 62 cloture votes to move beyond a filibuster, one more than the previous record set during the entirety of the 107th Congress in 2002.

The congressional gridlock has been glaringly reflected in public dissatisfaction. A recent Zogby poll reveals that only 13% of Americans have a positive view of congress. But a double digit majority says it prefers Democrats -not Republicans--running Capitol Hill.

"There is incredible Republican unity, some say they are staying on this ship as it sinks," Eric Lotke, research director at Campaign for America's Future told the Huffington Post. "What the Dems did wasn't half bad they got some things done on student loans and minimum wage. And I think the failure headlines are overstated. But that's only one hand. On the other hand, boy I wish they had done actual filibustering."

Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/20/republican-obstructionism_n_77704.html)