I'm increasingly disturbed by the campaign of misinformation that's out there in email land. Every day someone in my family stuns me with stupidity and the terrible effectiveness of misinformation. As we get closer to November, I know it's only going to get worse. I want to fight back, and I'm hoping for some help here.
Since over dinner tonight the issue of the economy came up (and the absurd argument that the economic boom during Clinton was actually due to Reagan. Sheesh!) I wanted to try to find some actual real information I can circulate around. Amazing to me how there seems to be mass delusion on this issue, where somehow Republicans are thought to be better for the economy by too many Americans who don't read the news, but do somehow read and forward inane, vitriolic emails and trust them implicitly.
Below I've cobbled together something I wanted to massage into a counter-point viral email that people will actually read, so it's got to be short and to the point. I'll try to make it punchier when I've got a better handle on the facts.
I'm hoping for some feedback and perhaps some more recent information to help make this case a little better, so if you've got sources or ideas, please share!
Here it is:
The stock market does better under Democratic presidents.
(Source: http://www.slate.com/... )
According to Slate, since 1900, Democratic presidents gave produced a 12.3 annual total return on the S&P 500, where Republicans only produced an 8% return.
Slate points out that most of the 20th century bear markets were under Republican watch: the Crash of 1929, the early 70's oil shock, the '87 "correction" and the current situation.
Since 1930, GDP growth was 5.4% for Democratic presidents and 1.6% for Republicans.
Under Democratic leadership, ALL income groups show better economic growth, but the poorest families show the most economic growth. This is according to Larry Bartels, a Princeton University professor. He shows that under Republicans, this trend is the exact opposite. Their overall performance is worse, and wildly tilted towards the top, with the top 1% showing the highest gains, while the poorest families show the worst growth rates.
(source: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/... )
Democrats are better for the budget and are more fiscally conservative with federal tax dollars than Republicans.
(Source: http://www.americanprogressaction.or... )
The biggest deficits occurred under Republican administrations. In the last 44 years, the budget was balanced five times--always under Democratic presidents.
Democrats are better for working Americans than Republicans.
(Source: http://www.americanprogressaction.or... )
After-tax income grew faster under Bill Clinton than under Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.
Job growth was also nearly four times stronger under Democratic presidents than under Republican presidents.
Output growth is 1.6 times stronger under Democrats.
Wage and salary growth is over three times as strong under Democrats.
Does anyone have any more recent information on how Democrats score on the economy compared to Republicans? Please comment with links to sources if you've got them.
Thanks for reading and feel free to copy and email to all your friends!