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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (67073)	4/6/2012 11:32:45 AM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Respond to of 103300

"Average growth under both president's was very similar or 3.36% under Mr. Reagan and 3.74% under Mr. Clinton. The huge spike in growth in 1983 (year 3) under Mr. Reagan followed a severe drop in 1982 (year 2) from the recession. Exactly. Reagan had a severe recession early in his presidency. Clinton didn't have a recession in his presidency, one was over just before his presidency and the next began just after he left. He was lucky in his timing of becoming president. Removing the cyclical recessions from consideration growth was much stronger under Reagan. OTOH part of that growth was bounce back from the recession (as was part of the growth early in Clinton's presidency, but that recession was less severe and had less bounce back) Without the huge spike following the recession, the growth rates under Mr. Reagan would have been even lower. True but if your going to discount that, you also have to discount the recession itself. This category also puts to rest another conservative myth, that is that tax cuts stimulate the economy. Nonsense. Even if the recession was caused by the tax cuts one example, when there are many other differences, wouldn't put rest to any economic theory. Its not a repeatable experiment. Conditions where different, and there where many factors contributing to and retarding growth in both periods. But the reality is the tax cuts where after the recession, they didn't cause it, and the poor performance during it can't be blamed on them. Some of the tax cuts where not put in place until after the recession was over. The first batch of tax cuts helped cause the huge spike following the recession. Look at recessions since then and the spikes have generally been smaller. Presidents get too much credit and blame for economic results (esp. IMO Clinton), but to the extent you are going to give presidents for results, Reagan gave us strong growth after the wringing out of damaging inflation. Clinton had the lucky timing to be president between two recessions without having one in his term (he got all the bounce back from the first one and all the bubbleicous growth leading to the 2nd, without the pain of either). The main positive policy during his time (and on this point the record is better than Reagan's or than any other president in modern times) is restraing the growth of federal spending, but that was largely due to the Republican congress (unfortunately Republicans in congress didn't stay that way, witness what happened when Bush was president), and to the peace dividend (which Regan helped create in two ways, helping to end the cold war, and also restocking the military which made it easier to make cuts later without crippling our armed forces).