A liberal buddy of mine posted this graphic on FaceBook the other day.
It always makes me chuckle when liberals try to discredit President Reagan. It just shows how effective he was.
I had to set him straight with the facts. Here’s my response:
Let’s tackle the unemployment rate first. It is deceiving because the labor participation rate is at the lowest since the Carter years. Current labor participation rate ~the labor force as a percent of the noninstitutional population ~ is 63.2%. If we had the same labor force participation rate that we had at the beginning of the Obama regime, unemployment rate would be at 10%. There are 10 Million more Americans not in the labor force since Obama’s Imaculation. The U6 unemployment rate ~which is the total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.~ is 13.6%.
From
CNN, “When the recession ~Obama’s "inherited" recession; remember he was in Congress when it started~ began, workers in every category lost jobs, but those in the middle and higher wage groups lost more of them.
“And when the jobs started coming back, the lower-wage jobs came back stronger. That means that, while the nation has replaced lost jobs, many of those new jobs pay less than the old ones did.
Under Reagan there were 17 Million jobs created.
Now, let’s look at the actual numbers on the debt. First, the only reason that the deficit has dropped is because of the Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives. The federal budget goes from October 1 - September 30. When we elected the Republicans to Congress in the fall of 2010, they took office in January of 2011 and the first budget year they had was the 2012. That was the fiscal year that the federal deficit started to decrease slightly.
Here are the actual numbers. The federal deficit the last year of the Bush/Republican Congress budget was $161 Billion. When the Democrats took control of Congress after the 2006 elections, the next fiscal year the deficit climbed to $459 Billion and $1413 Billion the year King Barry I was elected. That was when TARP was forced on us. We then had 2 additional years of $1300 Billion deficits with Obama/Democrat Congress. Finally with Republicans back in control of the House, the deficit has come down slightly to $1100 Billion and $973 Billion. So yes, the deficit is technically down from its highs, but doesn't really paint the whole picture.
Even
CBS had to admit last year ~2012~ that the national debt grew more under Obama than under Bush ~and that’s not even counting the fact that the deficit started climbing when the Democrats took control of Congress~
Let’s look at the numbers from Reagan; the highest deficit that he had was $221 Billion.
Even
Steny Hoyer had to admit that his claim that Reagan’s record on the debt was comparable to Obama’s was wrong.
“JOE SCARBOROUGH: $221, $149, $155 [million]. Over eight years, Ronald Reagan didn’t run up deficits that Barack Obama ran up this past year. But even in inflation-adjusted dollars, Barack Obama ran up higher deficits last year than Ronald Reagan did over eight years.
“STENY HOYER: No, you’re correct.
“JOE SCARBOROUGH: Thank you. That’s all I wanted.”
The year they are referencing is 2012.
Let’s look at percentages of GDP. Under Reagan, the highest that the deficit as a percentage of GDP was 6% in 1983; under Obama it was 11% in 2010 ~which by the way was during the Democrat controlled Congress.~
Federal debt as percentage of GDP under Reagan was 53% in 1989 ~remember when the federal fiscal year ends~ while under Obama, it is over 100%.
Remember also that the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives ~where spending originates~ during Reagan’s entire term. The Republicans did have control of the Senate for the 4 years in the middle of Reagan’s administration.
The federal debt today stands at over $17 Trillion; which is over $52K per person and doesn't include the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare.
You can try to spin Obama’s record all you want to, but the actual numbers don’t lie. There is no comparison between the Reagan economy and the Obama economy.
I’ll keep you up-to-date on any responses that I get. The typical response I get from him and his liberal buddies are name-calling with their favorite being that I am a racist. It’s the usual tactic of someone who doesn't have facts on their side.
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