Economy Better Under GWBush Than Bill Clinton: Statistical Comparison

Self | The_Macallan

[The_Macallan]

The Economy -
GW's 1st three years versus Clinton's 1st three years:

Unemployment Rate -
Jan 2004: 5.6% (After GWBush's 1st three years)
Change in rate from prior year (Jan '03-'04): 0.3%, Decrease

Jan 1996: 5.6% (After Bill Clinton's 1st three years)
Change in rate from prior year (Jan '95-'96): 0.0%, No change

* The Unemployement Rate is the same after GWBush's 1st three years as it was after Bill Clinton's 1st three years.
* The Unemployment rate steadily declined in the third year with GWBush while it remained unchanged in Bill Clinton's third year.

Poverty Rate For Families (Two-Year Average) -
2001-2002: 9.40% (GWBush's 1st two years)
1993-1994: 12.95% (Clinton's 1st two years)
1993-2000: 10.50% (Average for Clinton's full eight years)

* The % of families living in poverty is lower after two years under GWBush than after two years under Bill Clinton - even lower than 7 out of 8 of Clinton's years in office.

Percent of People Below 50 Percent of Poverty Level (Two-Year Average) -
2001-2002: 4.95% (GWBush's 1st two years)
1993-1994: 6.05% (Clinton's 1st two years)
1993-2000: 5.31% (Average for Clinton's full eight years)

* The % of people living in deep poverty is lower after two years under GWBush than after two years under Bill Clinton - even lower than the average across Clinton's entire TWO terms of office... AND lower than ANY of Clinton's 1st six years in office.

Homeownership Rate -
GWBush's 1st three years:
4th Quarter 2000: 67.5% (before GWBush)
4th Quarter 2003: 68.6% (after 3 years of GWBush)
Difference: +1.1%

Bill Clinton's 1st three years:
4th Quarter 1992: 64.4% (before Clinton)
4th Quarter 1995: 65.1% (after 3 years of Clinton)
Difference: +0.7%

* The Homeownership Rate is higher under GWBush's 1st three years than under Bill Clinton's 1st three years.
* The Homeownership Rate grew MORE in the 1st three years with GWBush than in the 1st three years with Bill Clinton.

Inflation Rate -
GWBush's 1st three years:
Jan 2001: 3.73% (before GWBush)
Jan 2004: 1.93% (after 3 years of GWBush)
Difference: 1.8% Decrease

Bill Clinton's 1st three years:
Jan 1993: 3.26% (before Clinton)
Jan 1996: 2.73% (after 3 years of Clinton)
Difference: 0.53% Decrease

* The Inflation Rate is lower after three years of GWBush than it was after Bill Clinton's first three years.
* The Inflation Rate declined over three times greater under GWBush than under Bill Clinton.

[The_Macallan]

A few more tidbits:
* "2004 Will Be the U.S.'s Best Year Economically in Last 20 Years" ~ The Conference Board's revised forecast, December 2003.
* Manufacturing is at 20-year record highs.
* GDP for the second-half of 2003 grew an incredible 6 percent while inflation was held under 1 percent.
* Real private-sector GDP has expanded at a 5.3 percent annual rate since the Bush tax cuts were passed while in the prior six quarters private-sector GDP averaged only 2.5 percent.
* Foreign exports have been increasing and have actually doubled since six months ago.
* The Federal deficit is estimated to be $477 billion in 2004 but then drop to $362 billion for 2005. The current 2004 deficit is 4.2% of the GDP which makes it smaller, compared to the GDP, than what it was in the late '80s and early '90s.
* The stock markets (i.e. your pensions, IRAs, 401(k)s and college saving plans) have rebounded solidly and are approaching three-year highs.

Economically, things are looking good and getting better.

And so even though GWBush "wrecked" the economy, caused a long and deep recession and threw 4 gabzillion people out of work - in just two years GWBush was still able to keep the poverty rate LOWER than what Clinton had done in almost EIGHT years?
* And all of this IN SPITE OF 9-11, which annhialated one of America's most important financial centers.
* AND in spite of waging two major overseas wars to overthrow two terrorist regimes.
* AND in spite of completely revamping and reconstructing our national security and intelligence agencies to defend against constant domestic terrorist threats.
* And yet we STILL have (as the numbers show) a far BETTER economy after three years of GWBush than when he first took office.
* And, as shown above, GWBush has had a GREATER positive impact on the economy than what Clinton was able to accomplish in his first three years.


Now I bet you'll never hear ANY of this by listening to CNN/NBC/CBS/ABC/MSNBC/NPR or by reading USATODAY/NYTimes/WashPost/LATimes.

THERE IS NO LIBERAL BIAS IN THE MEDIA.
THERE IS NO LIBERAL BIAS IN THE MEDIA.
THERE IS NO LIBERAL BIAS IN THE MEDIA.

---

It's Not Just A Gun...

It's My "HOMELAND DEFENSE RIFLE"!!

[The_Macallan]

Whoops. Forgot my sources:

http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab1.htm
http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/histpov/hstpov13.html
http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/histpov/hstpov22.html
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/hvs/q403tab5.html
http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/HistoricalInflation.aspx
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/TaxFacts/Tfdb/TFTemplate.cfm?DocID=213&Topic2id=20&Topic3id=22
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031211/nyth120_1.html
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0104/012604cdpm1.htm

[Peach]

You've done a GREAT job! Thanks.

Factories operate at 20 year high.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=568&ncid=749&e=1&u=/nm/20040301/bs_nm/economy_manufacturing_dc

[Peach]

Some key points:

As of February 2004, there has been a household gain of 2.4 million jobs.

Monthly job statistics began to be collected in 1939. Since that time, there HAS NEVER been positive growth in jobs two years after a recession ended. Instead, there's been a 0.6% decline. What's going on with the jobs,therefore, is entirely consistent with what's happened every other time there has been a recession. And we've never had a 9/11 before.

The net worth of all US households is $44.4 trillion, the highest level ever.

More than two-thirds of American families own their own homes, the highest percentage ever.

Weekly initial jobless claims have dropped from a high of 459,000 last year to 345,000 last week.

Consumer prices increased just 1.9% in the past year.

The unemployment rate is 5.6%. The average unemployment rate since 1980 was 6.3%. The average unemployment rate in the 1990's was 5.7%.

The stock market has advanced 45% in the past 12 months.

The gross domestic product, the total goods and services produced in the US, increased in the third quarter last year at an annual rate of 8.2% after inflation and 4.1% in the fourth quarter. Growth in the 1990's averaged a little better than 3% annually.

The wealthiest 5 percent pay more than half the taxes, while people in the bottom half pay just 4 percent.

Factory output is at a 20 year high.

The number of American workers is at an all-time high of 138.5 million, a level never before attained in U.S.
history.

The average was is currently $15.40 vs. $11.80 during Clinton's term.

[Peach]

Although we've lost over 2 million jobs, we've added over 2 million jobs too! A key fact that the Democrats NEVER talk about.

[CheezyD]

Excellent work! I hope you do not mind me posting this on another forum (www.glocktalk.com).

[Paradox]

This is a great bit of work! Amazing what one can do on the internet nowadays. The days of unopposed lies are over, now if we could only get the media to go along..

I think we here on FR were the first to point out the questionable associations between the families who were mad at Bush for the adds. That work, plus a follow up by Rush, really nailed that one down.

We gotta talk up these statistics, I am so sick of hearing the 3million jobs lost stat. They are so shameless, those democrats.

[Spruce]

The rats will label this "negative data" or "attack data". "How dare the President use the economy in such a blatant...blah..blah...blah..."

[bolobaby]

What are you doing? Trying to refute liberal arguments with FACTS is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline! It just makes them roar louder!

[baseballmom]

Great job. Bookmarked and bumped.

I firmly believe that if people are truly curious about this year's election, they will use the internet to gather their information. The broadcast and print media are not reliable sources.

[Danette]

great thread. bump for later reading

[OrioleFan]

I am concerned that an unreported aspect of the jobs issue is that states are passing legislation that is intended to put small business out of business (e.g Maine forcing small business owners to provide healthcare for employees).

Here in Dayton, Ohio there is an economic development organization in Montgomery County that has set up a system where when the city of Dayton drives a business out to one of the surrounding cities in the county, that city has to provide a portion of the tax revenue back to the City of Dayton as compensation. Several of the cities in Montgomery County challenged this but were wacked down by the courts. The root of the problem is the City of Dayton's insatiable appetite for tax dollars. If my company decides to consolidate my office in Beavercreek (Greene County) with our office in Riverside (Montgomery County) then I will become one of the unployment statistics rather than take a 1.5+% cut to pay Dayton local income taxes.

[THX 1138]

Good stuff.

This election looks alot like '92, in this respect: the Dems are telling the same lies. Remember Slick telling us about "the worst economy in a generation"? The same page from the same playbook. This time, Bush had better fight back.

[Arrowhead1952]

The Economy -
GW's 1st three years versus Clinton's 1st three years:

This will be on page A1 of all the major newspapers tomorrow and will be reported on ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN news programs.

NOT!!!

[Bringbackthedraft]

All this is great news that won't be brought to the general public's attention via the national media. All that is important to them is that GWB stole the election and has to be punished. It doesn't mater if he performed better than Clinton because performing better than a non performer will always better. Bush will have to pound the message home during the campaign and not pull any punches. He will have to be very aggressive. His problem in my opinion is he is too nice of a guy.

[fella]

How dare you to bring facts into the carefully constructed demonrat, NY times, washington post, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and NPR propaganda campaign.

[sixmil]

WRT unemployment, although I can understand you comparing the first 3 Clinton years to the first 3 Bush years, I think in reality people will be comparing the last 4 years of Clinton instead. The late 90's are fresh in peoples' minds, not the mid 90's.

1997     5.2 5.2 5.1 4.9 5.0 4.9 4.8 4.9 4.7 4.6 4.7   
1998 4.6 4.6 4.7 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.5 4.5 4.6 4.5 4.4 4.4   
1999 4.3 4.4 4.2 4.3 4.2 4.3 4.3 4.2 4.2 4.1 4.1 4.0   
2000 4.0 4.1 4.0 3.8 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.1 4.0 3.9 3.9 3.9   
2001 4.2       average = 4.4

2001     4.2 4.3 4.4 4.3 4.5 4.6 4.9 5.0 5.4 5.6 5.7   
2002 5.6 5.7 5.7 5.9 5.8 5.8 5.8 5.7 5.7 5.7 5.9 6.0   
2003 5.8 5.9 5.8 6.0 6.1 6.3 6.2 6.1 6.1 6.0 5.9 5.7   
2004 5.6 5.6   average = 5.5

Things are obviously turning around, but some decisive action could turn things around even faster. I think it would be possible to get to 4.9% by election time, which would ensure victory in November.

[The_Macallan]

Apples & oranges mon! Apples & oranges.

There's no sense in comparing GWBush's 1st three years (following the Clinton recession) to the LAST years of Clinton's SECOND term in office.

For a fair and honest comparison, we must compare the results of Clinton's administration coming out of a recession to GWBush's administration coming out of a recession.

With all due respect, only the DemocRATs would think of comparing GWBush and Clinton in the way you suggest.

---

It's Not Just A Gun...

It's My "HOMELAND DEFENSE RIFLE"!!

[olliemb]

Have you reported this to Fox News? I keep reading on the internet and from Fred Barnes about how the economy is improving but numbers quoted is the best way to convince people. Have you sent to Rush Limbaugh, Newsmax and to Fox news? Thanks for such a great report.