Name:   GoneFishin - Subject:   And this is why I am a liberal Date:   10/13/2014 8:47:29 PM

Here are some facts not opinions from a book titled “Bulls, Bears and the Ballot Box”.  You conveniently forget that Roosevelt had to dig us out from the deep economic hole created under a Republican president. And, Obama has had to do the same.

• Personal disposable income has grown nearly 6 times more under Democratic presidents
• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown 7 times more under Democratic presidents
• Corporate profits have grown over 16% more per year under Democratic presidents (they actually declined under Republicans by an average of 4.53%/year)
• Average annual compound return on the stock market has been 18 times greater under Democratic presidents (If you invested $100k for 40 years of Republican administrations you had $126k at the end, if you invested $100k for 40 years of Democrat administrations you had $3.9M at the end)
• Republican presidents added 2.5 times more to the national debt than Democratic presidents
• The two times the economy steered into the ditch (Great Depression and Great Recession) were during Republican, laissez faire administrations

The book is great at looking past today’s economic myths by using long forgotten facts to set the record straight.  For example, in explaining President Reagan‘s great economic recovery of the 1980s it is often attributed to the stimulative impact of major tax cuts (ERTA.)  But in reality the 1981 tax cuts backfired, leading to massive deficits and a weaker economy with a double dip recession as unemployment soared.  So in 1982 Reagan signed (TEFRA) the largest peacetime tax increase in our nation’s history.  In his tenure Reagan signed 9 tax bills – 7 of which raised taxes!