Reagan inherited a "real" unemployment (what is reported is almost always about 2/3 of actual) of almost 20% from Carter. It wasn't until halfway through his first term that "stagflation" was broken. 8% was unbelievably good given what he inherited. Barry the Intern inherited something slightly less than 8%. If you read the latest BLS report, they admit that there are 2 Million less people employed than they are counting because of a seasonal adjustment which they can't explain. So the "Actual" number is much higher than what they are reporting as a so-called statistic. They reported 233,000 new jobs which is 20,000 less than is needed to break even. What they didn't report is that for the last 2 years, they have revised the number downward consistently. (They revise 60 days after the initial reporting when the data becomes more clear.).
I think Reagan blew some opportunities to repeal some programs that we do not need. He also forced an end to the cold war which may have lasted another 30 years (according to some historians and economists). The absolute amount of the national debt is not as important as the relative size of the debt to GDP. We have known for almost 80 years that tax revenue is approximately 19% of GDP across a fairly wide range of tax rates. So a higher GDP allows for more debt without debt burden becoming much of an issue. However, in the case of Geithner/Obama/Pelosi/Reid, the debt doubled while real GDP shrank. Thus forcing economic uncertainty. Private sector investment is still about where is was in 2000. And has been for the last three years. The main cause of this is risk (i.e. uncertainty). Investors do not want to risk their capital if they cannot predict the tax rates or healthcare costs or regulatory burden. The regulatory burden imposed by this administration has been a severe drag on the economy. This is mostly pandering to unions or punishment to industrial sectors that do not support a liberal agenda. What I am SHOCKED about is that the media hasn't gotten this. I wonder if the media would have picked it up if GWB had imposed so many regulations on Hollywood that making a TV show costs 3 times what it did before?
My problem with Romney besides not having the cojones to say "Romneycare" sucked and admitting he was wrong is that Romney is a moderate version of Obama. He is a progressive that thinks he is smart enough to "manage" government better than the last guy and make things work. There is not a real fiscal conservative candidate willing to take a chain saw to the US government and slash departments and spending much the way Obama has skirted the Constitution and added regulations and spending without the approval of Congress. (This may really bite the Democrats in the ass if a Republican wins in November.) The acquiescence of the Democratic controlled Senate to the "Advise and Consent" role is one the worst abominations in our 235+ year history. Economists used to predict that the USA would face an economic crisis, not unlike Greece's, around 2025 when the last of the baby boomers started hitting retirement. Now, due to reckless spending and over regulation, it appears we will hit austerity by 2016-2018.
Originally Posted by blue3122
Barry the intern, aren't you cute. Of course you being from texas, 47th in education, I had to check you numbers. The unemployment rate in jan of 81 when reagan took office was7.5% ,rising to over 10% in sept "82(1.5 yrs into reagan's1st term) and staying above 10% till july of '83. In jan "09 the rate was 7.8 %, hit a high of 10% for ONE month in occt. "09 and has slowly ccome down since.
The best comparison i could find was the unemployed and under employed rate, not sure if discouraged worker are included, which hit a high of 17.1% in dec of'82, almost 2yrs into his term and a high of 17.5% in oct of '09, 8 month into his presidency. So by your definition and by the numbers shown, Obama must be somewhere around " unbelievably good".
The debt didn't double Under "Obama, geitner/pelosi/reid". the deficit from bush's last budget year which ended in sept '09 was 1.4 trillion. So Obama's debt levels are about the same as bush's considering the effects of the recession. I'm not a big fan of these comparisons, but I've heard it said considering the size of the economy reagan's deficits are about the same as those of today. I think you tried to say something llke that when started talking about gdp and whatnot but forgot to factor in that we are in a major recession and even cutting $300 or 400 billion would be a major blow to the economy. Bush squandered the surpluses handed to him by clinton and spent trillion fighting ill-advised and ill planned wars coupled with a financial sector gone wild and we're serious trouble. Ecconomists predicted it would be at least 3 to 5 yrs before things got better and probably not till the end of the decade till employment levels got back to the 4 to 5 % range. It seems we've started on that path.
Regulation a "serious drag" on the economy ? The unregulated financial sector was a mega Bomb on the economy. I worked in Business too long to trust those bastards, of course with smiles on their faces , just like the mob. So long as one business in an industry isn't favored over another by a regulation, I generally don't have a problem with them. Even all the really questionable regulations added up don't have any more than small effect on the economy.