The upcoming election is about money, and economic well-being, as well it should be. Recent research shows that we have always done better economically under Democratic administrations than under Republican.
The research was compiled by Professor Arthur I. Blaustein, who teaches public policy and economic development at UC Berkeley. It appeared over the weekend in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, entitled Economy has fared better under Dem presidents. Here’s an excerpt, looking at the historical record.
During the 20th century, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 7.3 percent per year on average under Republican presidents. Under Democrats, it rose 10.3 percent - which means that investors gained a whopping 41 percent more. And the stock market declined further during George Bush’s two terms.
Moreover, according to research from Professor Larry Bartels of Princeton, real middle class wage growth is double when a Democrat is president, contrasted to that growth under a Republican president.
Since World War II, Democratic presidents have increased the national debt by an average of 3.7 percent per year, and Republican presidents have increased it an average of 10.1 percent. During the same time period, the unemployment rate was, on average, 4.8 percent under Democratic presidents; it was 6.3 percent under Republicans.
Somebody told me the other day she was undecided whom to vote for. I was astonished. I said, “Do you LIKE these prices?”
There’s a passionate catch phrase about the Democrats that they’re the party of “tax and spend’, but an economist would look a little more dispassionately at this and ask, what’s so bad about taxes and government expenditures? Taxes are the money we invest in our public infrastructure, and expenditure is how the money gets into the economy.
Tax and spend, on public policy that is voted on and analyzed in the light of day, can be a cheap system of transfer payments to grow an economy, especially if it distorts free markets LESS in favor of the old money of existing capital, and MORE to help the generally smaller businesses producing the new wealth, which is to say, capital arising.
Witness, as a contrast, the bailouts of our mis-regulated, private-enterprise financial infrastructure, to see a cool trillion dollars leaving the economy, never to return to the taxpayers who will lose this money. Furthermore, the government competition for credit now coming from the budget deficit only serves to strangle availability for the rest of us.
There are myths and misapprehensions around the subject of money, one of our least understood national icons. A great public service would be to help clarify some of these misunderstandings, and I’ll do what I can. Meanwhile, if you wonder how to vote in the election, look at your bank balance and ask if you can afford another Republican administration.
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