Random Thoughts

In my previous posts, I have argued that democrats have simply been better stewards of the economy in the past, particularly in the last 60 years. Tax-and-spend Liberal My Ass Politics of the Federal Minimum Wage Democrats Have Kept Unemployment Low Democrats care about poor people Truth About Economic Performance of Political Parties In this post, I will discuss a recent graphic that further consolidates the view that the US economy has performed better under democratic presidents than republican ones. As I have noted before, there are many factors that affect the performance of the US economy aside from who is in the White House. Those factors notwithstanding, the whole narrative of a good economy under democratic administrations had been consistently true. Tommy McCall provided a stark graphic at The New York Times called Bulls, Bears, Donkeys and Elephants . In there, he compares the performance of the stock market (S&P 90 * S&P 500) during Democratic and Republica...

This is a continuation of my earlier posts on economic performance of democratic and republican administrations. My earlier posts include: Politics of the Federal Minimum Wage Democrats Have Kept Unemployment Low Democrats care about poor people Truth About Economic Performance of Political Parties I like to think I have shed light on some facts and debunked some conventional wisdom. In this post, I will attempt to examine the tax-and-spend liberal label put on democrats. Republicans often try to label democrats as tax-and-spend liberals who are soft on national security. While the latter point is based on anecdotal evidence, the earlier is amenable to empirical examination. So, I set out to prove or disprove the notion that democrats often tax and spend in a way that does not yield economic growth. The implication of tax-and-spend liberal is one that puts excessive tax burden on its population and finds inefficient (think socialistic) ways of spending that tax reven...

In my previous post, I tried to test my theory that democrats care about poor people than republicans by looking at the change in federal minimum wage under democratic and republican presidents. It is somewhat difficult to prove or disprove my theory graphically, so I prepared a little spreadsheet and calculated real numbers. While I was at it, I decided to factor in the role of Congress in determining the federal minimum wage. The results are as follows. It is important to get a general feel for the extent to which the two parties have controlled the executive (president) and legislative (Senate and House) branches of the government. As the pie chart below shows, Democrats have controlled Congress for a lot longer than the Republicans, while Republican presidents have ruled a little bit longer. SOURCE: http://uspolitics.about.com/od/usgovernment/l/bl_party_division_2.htm Next item to look at is government control by president, Senate and House majority. The Democrats have ruled t...

According to unemployment statistics from 1950-2005, democratic presidents have consistently managed to achieve low unemployment rates while republicans have increased unemployment. Granted there are circumstances that are out of a president's control like Wars, global conditions, natural disasters Congress might have been controlled by a party different from the president to push his agenda The factors above notwithstanding, it amazes me how republicans can claim good stewardship of the economy while they have generally failed to provide people with jobs. The democrats, on the other hand, have kept unemployment low during their administrations. The more I learn about the post-WWII economic history of the U.S., the more I realize how the republican party is the party of fraud and myths, at least when it comes to the economic record.

I think democrats care about the poor and middle class much more than republicans do. Lots of their policies this year are intended to provide relief to a struggling middle class families. I would like to compile tangible proof that democrats care about the struggling and down-and-out. The first case I wanted to look at was federal minimum wages during democratic and republican administrations. During the past seven years, a republican president and congress have blocked some 14 attempts to increase the federal minimum wage. Fortunately, they lost their control of congress in 2006 and were forced into passing law increasing minimum wage from the decade long $5.15/hr to $7.25/hr over the course of a few years. The battle for federal minimum wage increases got me thinking about previous battles of its kind. So, I looked into the all-knowing Wikipedia for stats and I found this : Since my interests were particularly partisan, I looked into how much minimum wage changed under democra...