By Mark Esposito, Weekend Blogger
In the red corner, wearing angelic white trunks trimmed in gold that darling of the Right, that Gipper of trickle-down economics, the Great Communicator himself, Ron–ald “The California Killer” Rea–gan.
And in the blue corner with black trunks trimmed in red, the “change” President, the foil of all things conservative, the first of firsts in American History, Bar–ack “Betcha Can’t Believe Where I’m From” O–Bam–a.
And today’s contest is a three-round fight for the World Super Heavyweight Economics Guru Belt. The format is a 10 point “must” system and you are the judges. I, your humble ring announcer, get a scorecard but it’s only advisory.
But first some background, both fighters weigh in after tangling with some decidedly tough contenders before this big bout. Reagan came into office with a much more serious recession than most on the Left give him credit for. In addition, he followed hot on the heels of what his predecessor called the great American “malaise.” Plus he had an adversarial relationship with the nation’s biggest rival, the Soviet Union.
Obama came into office with a war on two fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan, a massive recession, and a world-wide financial industry on the brink of collapse. Pretty tough contenders. Plus, he had and has a Congressional opposition party whose expressed goal was to make sure nothing he proposed made it into law. And law, as you know, is the political boxer’s stock-in-trade.
Ding— ding — ding.
Round 1: Jobs
Barack jabs with the fact that unemployment in the US in August stood at 6.1% that’s a full year faster than it took Reagan to reach the same level. And it’s now down to 5.9% a figure Reagan never achieved. Obama also uppercuts with the fact that the economy he presides over has created, on average, 200,000 new jobs every month for the past six. That puts Obama at a projected 2.5 million jobs created for FY 2014. Reagan counters that in first year in office, unemployment stood at around 10.5% or about a half to three-quarters of a point higher than Obama’s highest figure. Obama counters that initial claims for unemployment are at the lowest point since 2000. 2000!
Reagan dances. “But overall, jobs created while I was in office for the entire term totalled a net figure of 16.1 million. That’s about three times yours, so far, Barack.”
Here’s a graphic depiction of the two fighters comparing the unemployment rate during their first 67 months in office:
Announcer’s Scorecard: Reagan 10 – Obama 9
Round 2: Investor ROI
Reagan comes out strong in Round 2, hooking with the undeniable stat that a dollar invested in the Standard & Poors 500 Index of stocks in year one of his Presidency would have yielded a staggering 190% return on investment after 5.5 years — a record in American history. Reagan bores in saying he did it with tax cuts and government spending in defense and manufacturing sectors. Obama covers up, but is it rope-a-dope? Out of the corner, Obama right crosses that a dollar invested in that same S&P 500 Index during year 1 of his Presidency would yield a return of 220% in the same time frame and that the Dow stands at its highest level ever. And that translates into real dollars for non-passive investors (i.e., working everyday Americans) as 2/3 of Americans are invested in the market through their pensions or 401K plans.
Here’s the chart of ROI:
Your announcer scores it: Obama 10-Reagan 9
Round 3: Government Spending
Staggered but not out of it, Reagan thinks this round is his. He is after-all the supply side economics guy who cut government spending to boost an ailing economy and made all Republican economists sing with delight every time a tax is eliminated. Sort of like that tinkling bell in a Wonderful Life when an angel got it’s wings. Reagan hits hard with the fact that in “the first year of the Obama presidency … the federal budget increased a whopping 17.9%—going from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion.” And the ringside Reagan chanters keep up the mantra from ringside that it was due to the stimulus package.
Except … that every President’s first year budget is proposed and passed, not by his administration but by his predecessor in office and the Congress from the year before. In Obama’s case, George W. Bush passed the Obama’s first year budget and it is his deficit and spending priorities in that document. Thus, Obama’s 2009 budget belongs squarely to President George W. Bush and the 2008 Congress. “Well,” the Gipper says from his coverup crouch, “Obama must have continued the rate of spending to astronomical levels.”
Not exactly. Here is a bar Graph showing the rate of federal government spending under the past 5 US Presidents:
And add these punches to your ring scorecard:
Courtesy of Marketwatch–
- In fiscal 2010 (the first Obama budget) spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.
- In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.
- In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.
- Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion.
Your Announcer scores it Obama 10 – Reagan 8
And The Winner is:
Ok, now it’s up to you. Who is the best President you’ve seen on the economy out of the last five:
Sources: Forbes (Hartung article); Forbes (Ungar article)
~Mark Esposito, Weekend Blogger
By the way and for better or worse, the views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not necessarily those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays of art are solely the author’s decision and responsibility. No infringement of intellectual property rights is intended and will be remedied upon notice from the owner. Fair use is however asserted for such inclusions of quotes, excerpts, photos, art, and the like.
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/02/dueling-debt-deceptions/
I dont think it is quite as Mespo says it is.
Byron – I would say that things are not as Mark sets them out. Or as the Obama administration puts them out. There are lies, damn lies and statistics.
The facts don’t matter if you’re a republican. What matters is your level of shame. The higher the level of shame after eight years of the three stooges, the greater the denial. The greater the denial, the higher the level of attacks against Obama. Obama did not completely reverse the mess his predecessor left, nor did he reverse what has and continues to be wrong with America, however, he has stabilized the recovery, started the country on the path to a more intelligent balance between the self centered perspective of the big I Am and the societal responsibility that without there would be no big I Am.
Reagan sewered the country for seven years after his sixth year in office. He created the mess that Ross Perrot promised to ‘sweep up’ thus taking votes away from Bush Sr. Clinton rode the wave of tech prosperity. Clinton may not be able to take credit for the tech prosperity but Reagan, the little painter, and all those that want to take America back, surely are to blame for most of what is wrong with this country.
God help us if a republican gets into the White House.
SWM – liberal economics blame everything on reagan. They cannot get past that.
Eyeballs be spinnin’ in their sockets today…methinks.
http://www.shadowstats.com/
Mark:
Interesting article.
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/02/dueling-debt-deceptions/
Thanks for that link SWM, from 17.1 in 2009 to 11.8 in 2014. Undeniable proof the UE rate is going down, despite Bush almost tanking the economy.
My post just involves statistics. i realize that because there is no right wing spin on them that most here will consider them to be invalid.
10 years of the U-6 rate
The rate dropped below 12% in September for the first time in six years.
Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2004 9.9 9.7 10 9.6 9.6 9.5 9.5 9.4 9.4 9.7 9.4 9.2
2005 9.3 9.3 9.1 8.9 8.9 9 8.8 8.9 9 8.7 8.7 8.6
2006 8.4 8.4 8.2 8.1 8.2 8.4 8.5 8.4 8 8.2 8.1 7.9
2007 8.4 8.2 8 8.2 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.4 8.4 8.4 8.4 8.8
2008 9.2 9 9.1 9.2 9.7 10.1 10.5 10.8 11 11.8 12.6 13.6
2009 14.2 15.2 15.8 15.9 16.5 16.5 16.4 16.7 16.7 17.1 17.1 17.1
2010 16.7 17 17.1 17.2 16.6 16.4 16.4 16.5 16.8 16.6 16.9 16.6
2011 16.1 16 15.9 16.1 15.8 16.1 16 16.1 16.3 15.9 15.6 15.2
2012 15.1 15 14.5 14.6 14.8 14.8 14.9 14.7 14.7 14.4 14.4 14.4
2013 14.4 14.3 13.8 13.9 13.8 14.2 13.9 13.6 13.6 13.7 13.1 13.1
2014 12.7 12.6 12.7 12.3 12.2 12.1 12.2 12 11.8 undefined undefined undefined
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Current graph: Dropped from 17.1 in 2009 to 11.8 in October.
Another link and an excerpt
http://politicaloutcast.com/2014/01/magic-numbers-show-unemployment-6-7-percent/
First, you have to realize that not all unemployment figures are equal. The government has a range of reports that it classifies from U-1 to U-6, with the lower range being more manipulated than the upper range. The number that’s normally reported as “the” unemployment figure is from the U-3 report and excludes a lot of people, particularly those who are “underemployed,” working part time because no full-time jobs are available, or who have simply given up hope of finding a job.
The U-6 number is often considered a more accurate measure of overall unemployment, and it stayed the same in December at 13.1 percent. Some economists have suggested that even that number is low.
The magic ingredient in the Obama jobs stew is the number of people who drop out of the labor force entirely each month. These are people who either give up looking or who have simply been unemployed so long that the Administration just doesn’t count them anymore. For December, the BLS reports the civilian labor force shrank by 347,000.
So that decrease in the unemployment number isn’t because we’re going back to work; it’s because the government simply counts fewer people as potential workers.
oops would
@ Swarthmore: Here is an older one from the Washington Examiner. Jan 2014. It is likely even worse now.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wall-street-advisor-actual-unemployment-is-37.2-misery-index-worst-in-40-years/article/2542604
Where they estimate that actual unemployment is at 37%.
The government figures are misleading because they do not include those people who have completely stopped working, dropped out of the work force, given up looking or have gone permanently on welfare. The way the government calculates it is using only those people who are working or actively looking for work a much smaller pool of people and not representational of the whole picture.
Another link that explains the difference between the various ways to calculate unemployment U-6 U-5 or U-4
http://unemploymentdata.com/unemployment-rate/real-unemployment-rate/
It depends on which calculations you use as to how the numbers turn out. The government, in an effort to make things look better than they are, excludes many people from their calculations.
Statistics and math….they are the bitch.
Annie,Well I guess they will just have to email the professor and demand that no liberal blogger be allowed here. I guess rafflaw could be the next one they w try to eliminate. Maybe that is their assignment.
Swarthmoremom,
The other question to ask Paul is to tell us what the real unemployment rate was during the Reagan years.
mesposucks,
time for you and your master to take a hike.
mespo sucks Should be deleted as it is uncivil, but at the same times it shows the desperation of the people that want to drive mespo off this blog.
Be careful SWM, it appears that some folks don’t like having their assertions questioned. Posting cites and asking for proof is simply asking for too much, it seems.
Excellent article once again Mespo. I see it is bringing out those who don’t like the fact that Professor Turley still has some liberal weekend bloggers. No echo chamber…..yet.
Annie – I have not forgotten nor forgiven your behavior while JT was in Italy. Mark enabled that behavior. I refer you to DBQ’s response.
“The “real” unemployment rate is over 16 percent. Come on, Mark.” Paul C Could you provide a current link?
SWM – just ask Mark to supply it. He did all the research.
btw i think its perfectly clear to most people not in your little clique that youa re deliberately trying to provoke people that you view as political enemies. You are a 2 bit clown.
Why dont you sit down and think long and hard what you are doing to your ‘friend’ Mr Turleys site with your baiting articles.
Wow Mark Esposito continues his Democrat propaganda and drags the site down even further.
Complete lack of respect for Professor Turley on your part mespo. If you had any integrity, which you dont, you would resign from writing for this site.
Your articles are compelete garbage.
ps- Your ignorance on how unemployment is calculated is not unsuprising, but try not to advertise it. Reagan sucked. Obama sucks a helluva alot more.
BTW, Mark, no Obama budget was ever passed by either part of Congress.
The “real” unemployment rate is over 16 percent. Come on, Mark.