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Some statistics:

The 5.6 percent unemployment rate is the lowest in two years and below the average of the 1980s (7.3 percent) and '90s (5.8 percent), and still continues to drop.

The nation's economic output revealed the strongest quarterly growth in 20 years. The data for the fourth quarter of 2003 show that the civilian labor force rose by 333,000, while the number of unemployed in the labor force dropped by 575,000. Even better, the number of so-called discouraged workers declined in December

• Consumer spending grew between 4 percent and 5 percent last year, and real hourly earnings rose 1.5 percent. Real earnings have risen over the last three years.

• Exports doubled to 19 percent in the fourth quarter, compared to less than 9 percent in the third.

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

Investors Business Daily has a story by Jed Graham, "For nearly a year a debate has been brewing over which of the government's employment measures is wrong. Monthly payroll figures derived from a survey of 160,000 employers show a net loss of 537,000 jobs the past two years. But, the monthly survey of about 60,000 households shows the U.S. has added 2.4 million jobs in that span." Well, we just heard CNN report there are two and a half million jobs lost. Now we find out from Investors Business Daily there are other government numbers that show 2.4 million jobs have been created.

Many of the stats below can be credited to being retreived by freeper The Maccalan. THANK YOU!

Unemployment Rate -
Jan 2004: 5.6% (After GWBush's 1st three years)

Jan 1996: 5.6% (After Bill Clinton's 1st three years)

* 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

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.

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

I'm going to gather some additional information and post it on this thread so folks have ammunition to back up their letters.

Here's one little bit about the Clinton Potemkin economy based on a tissue of lies I've posted a couple of times here on FR (sorry, I just have the article saved and not the URL):

Robert Novak: Clinton-cooked books?

August 9, 2002 Posted:

WASHINGTON—The Commerce Department's painful report last week that the national economy is worse than anticipated obscured the document's startling revelation. Hidden in the morass of statistics, there is proof that the Clinton administration grossly overestimated the strength of the economy leading up to the 2000 election. Did the federal government join Enron and WorldCom in cooking the books?

Through all of President Clinton's last two years in office, the announced level of before-tax profits was at least 10 percent too high -- a discrepancy rising close to 30 percent during the last presidential campaign. Most startling, the Commerce Department in 2000 showed the economy on an upswing through most of the election year while in fact it was declining.

Although a political motive for Democratic cooking of the government's books is there, nobody -- including Bush administration officials -- alleges specific wrongdoing. Nor is there any evidence. Estimation in 2000 was conducted by career public servants who are doing the same jobs today (working under a highly political Democrat in the Commerce Department). Nevertheless, such discrepancy in earnings statements by corporate executives today would warrant a congressional subpoena.

The Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis quarterly estimates before-tax profits of domestic non-financial corporations, releasing the information the last week of the month following the quarter. Revised figures last week showed profits were really lower by 10.7 percent, 12.2 percent, 15.2 percent and 18 percent for the four quarters of 1999. In 2000, this gap became a chasm. The revised quarterly profits for the election year are lower than the announced figures by 23.3 percent, 25.9 percent, 29.9 percent and 28.2 percent.

Most startling, original estimates showed a generally rising profit outlook for the two years preceding the election. Starting with $503.7 billion in the last quarter of 1998, the quarterly estimates rose steadily to $543.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 1999 and then took off in the first two quarters of 2000 to $574.9 billion and $606.6 billion, leveling off to $602.9 billion in the third quarter (before falling to $527.3 billion in the fourth quarter after the election).

Last week's revised returns reflect not only different numbers but a different trend (starting at a much lower level of $473 billion). Profits actually fell through much of 2000, dropping from $449.7 billion to $422.4 billion for the second half (before slipping to $372.8 billion).

How could there be this big of a discrepancy? How could the government have reported steadily rising profits when they actually peaked in 1998?

"The gap is a bit larger than usual, but not really out of line," Brent Moulton, associate director at the Bureau of Economic Analysis, told me. Moulton, who was in charge of both the old figures and the new revision, said the problem was the two-year delay in obtaining corporate tax returns (reflecting changes in telecommunications and business services).

Moulton's boss in 1999-2000 was one of the Clinton administration's most politically astute economists: Under Secretary of Commerce Rob Shapiro, a pioneer "New Democrat" and early friend and supporter of Bill Clinton. I asked him flatly: "Did you cook the books?"

Shapiro laughed it off, asserting that the Bureau of Economic Analysis is "the most non-political, non-partisan agency in the government."

That begs the question of whether the bureau's very political, very partisan management chief should have known the bureaucrats were on the wrong track. "No," said Shapiro, "2000 looked very good to us." He dismissed the early reports as "an econometric projection based on estimates."

The result: headlines in 2000 spewing false information of corporate profits growing at 25 percent, bolstering the stock market and holding up the state of the economy as the election approached. That is the underpinning for the Democratic myth that a growing and vibrant American economy has been sabotaged by President Bush's tax cut ("We lost the opportunity for long-term economic growth," says House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt).

If the government's books were not purposely cooked in the same way as corporate accounts, there still remains the question of how the government could be so wrong. The Bureau of Economic Analysis may well be free of partisan tilt, but its incompetence can cast a long political shadow.

--END--

Personally I believe the Clinton Crime Cabal cooked the books to bolster the Clinton "legacy" and improve algore's chances of election. And we've done a damn fine job of recovering from these lies, especially considering the events of September 11, 2001. I only wish the Bush administration made a big presentation and released this information when it was discovered, and screw this "new tone" garbage which the democRATs aren't gonna recognize except as a sign of weakness. -MR