Monday, Nov. 7, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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In 1992, the Democratic Party publicly declared the era of liberal tax-and-spend policy over. They declared:
“We reject both the do-nothing government of the last 12 years and the big-government theory that says we can hamstring business and tax and spend our way to prosperity. Instead we offer a third way.”
Though Republican campaign rhetoric would have you believe otherwise, Democrats have largely delivered on that promise in the decades since.
With recent polling showing that inflation and the economy remain the top issues for voters, we have one simple piece of advice: Whether or not you like President Joe Biden, whether or not you agree with Democratic social policies, if you want a stronger economy, vote for Democrats.
While Republicans have claimed to be the party of “job creators” and “fiscal responsibility,” historic data tells a very different story.
Since the end of World War II in 1945, there have been 14 presidents — seven Democrats (including Biden) and seven Republicans. And economic performance in almost every metric shows that Democratic leadership has ushered in a stronger economy with more jobs, lower unemployment, higher wages, faster growth in the stock market and even higher profit for corporate America, than under the leadership of their Republican counterparts.
Six of the seven Democratic presidents left office with a lower national unemployment rate than when they entered office. The only exception was Jimmy Carter, who left office in 1981 with an identical unemployment rate as when he was sworn in four years earlier.
Conversely, six of the seven Republicans — all except for Ronald Reagan — left office with a higher unemployment rate than when they entered office.
The three largest increases in employment came from the three most recent Democratic presidents — Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton.
While all recent Democratic presidents were significant job creators, Biden tops the list with 4.3% annual growth in non-farm employment, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Democratic administrations deliver across-the-board economic improvements that Republican administrations can only dream about.
According to CNN, since 1945 the nation’s gross domestic product, or the measure of economic activity and income to the U.S. economy, grew an average of 4.1% under Democrats, versus 2.5% under Republicans. CNN’s numbers adjusted for COVID by cutting off their assessment in the second quarter of 2020. Bloomberg News found that during this same time frame, four of the five presidents with the fastest rate of GDP growth were Democrats. Once again, Reagan was the only Republican on the list, in fourth place, behind three Democrats.
According to CFRA — one of the world’s largest independent investment research firms — since 1945, corporate earnings per share were more than six times higher under Democratic presidents than under their Republican counterparts. A higher corporate earnings per share under Democratic leadership makes sense given that stock market returns are also historically higher under Democratic presidents. According to CFRA, since 1945, the S&P 500 has averaged growth of 11.2% during years when Democrats controlled the White House versus only 6.9% for Republicans.
Aided by high levels of economic activity and growth in corporate earnings and the stock market, Democrats have also made the most progress toward delivering a balanced budget. Bill Clinton was the last president to successfully deliver a budget surplus. But under Biden, the budget deficit has declined by more than $100 billion. Donald Trump, on the other hand, increased the deficit by more than $700 billion in a single year. And he followed in the footsteps of former President George Bush in raiding the Social Security Trust Fund and Medicare systems to keep the deficit from growing by even more.
The data doesn’t lie. And it makes sense when you put it in the context of Republican policies.
By promoting the false narrative of “job creators,” Republicans propose perpetual tax breaks for wealthy corporations and the billionaire class, paid for by raids on Social Security and Medicare, and tax increases on small businesses and low- and middle-income Americans.
Those same billionaires and corporate executives show their gratitude by moving jobs and assets offshore — lining their pockets at the expense of the American people.
Right now, Americans are experiencing both high levels of inflation and a threat to national security by the movement of U.S. manufacturing to China. While presidents of both parties have failed to effectively address the outsourcing of U.S. jobs to China, Trump added insult to injury by implementing a 25% tariff on Chinese goods without any means of ensuring that Chinese corporations paid the bill rather than passing the increased costs on to consumers. We warned of this when Trump was trumpeting his tariff. We should note that Biden has not removed the tariff, a mistake we look forward to him repairing. But unlike Trump, Biden has effectively targeted China in other ways — for example, his export controls on high-tech chips and manufacturing capacity have devastated several Chinese chip manufacturers without increasing costs to American consumers.
Ill-conceived plans like Trump’s leave Democrats to repair the chaos of Republican economic policy, which simultaneously slows economic growth, reduces revenues, increases costs, increases the deficit, and effectively defunds Social Security and Medicare.
The GOP economic playbook is all too familiar: As billionaires hoard money, consumer spending and confidence declines, unemployment increases, and GDP and the stock market both decrease. But America’s economic elite remain largely unaffected because their tax savings offset any losses they may endure. And with the windfall of money they saved by not paying their fair share of taxes, they can happily fund propaganda campaigns that promote the lie that Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility. Rinse and repeat.
It’s a vicious cycle.
We’re seeing the cycle at play even here in Nevada.
Under the current Democratic leadership of Gov. Steve Sisolak and Treasurer Zach Conine, Nevada has earned the highest credit rating in the state’s 158-year history. And while our tourism-based economy was hit especially hard by the COVID pandemic, we’re enjoying one of the fastest economic recoveries of any state in the country.
Yet Republican candidates for statewide executive office are spending millions of dollars running ads attacking the economic records of their democratic opponents, citing inflation as their only evidence. But as we wrote Sunday, most of the factors that drive inflation are beyond the influence of the governor of one state in the Western U.S., regardless of his or her party.
That’s why Republicans refuse to provide any details on how they would bring inflation down. Instead, they’ve tried to keep the voters distracted with a decades-long lie that Democrats will tax and spend while Republicans provide fiscal responsibility.
But now you know the facts. If you want a stronger economy, vote for Democrats.
