There are many reasons why Democrats are better than Republicans on a wide range of issues. Whether you’re a woman who believes you should have control over your own body; a working person who believes you should have some power vis-a-vis big corporations; a member of the middle class who doesn’t want your taxes raised to pay for huge tax cuts to multi-millionaires; an intelligent, educated person who believes that scientific research should be respected, supported and listened to, not scorned and persecuted; anyone who wants to cure diseases like Alzheimers, Parkinsons, Type 1 Diabetes, etc. through techniques like embryonic stem cell research; or simply an American who believes in strengthening our nation through a balanced approach in which the wealthiest are asked to pay more and in which we invest in our nation’s infrastructure, hence its future; you should strongly prefer the Democratic Party over the Republican Party. Not even close.
But one area that’s not often mentioned as a strength of Democrats vis-a-vis Republicans is strictly on financial matters. In other words, there’s the (utterly erroneous but widespread) belief among many Americans is that if you’re just a greedy SOB, if you only care about your personal financial situation, then you should vote Republican, because you’ll certainly do better under their leadership. Well, guess what: according to a brand-new, in-depth analysis (Bulls Bears and the Ballot Box: How the Performance of OUR Presidents Has Impacted YOUR Wallet”) by two highly-qualified people — Bob Deitrick, “co-owner of Polaris Financial Partners and a native of Northern Virginia,” and Lew Goldfarb, “professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, where he serves as Director of the College’s Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic” — that is absolutely NOT the case.
Check out the chart above, and the ones after the “fold,” and see for yourself — it’s not even close. The first chart, for instance, shows that, over the past 80 years, if you had invested $100,000 of your money during the 40 years Republicans held the White House (this analysis uses the Dow and an Average Annual Compound Return — AACR), you’d now have a pitiful $126,027. Whoopee. In stark contrast, if you had invested $100,000 of your money during the 40 years Democrats held the White House, you’d have multiplied your money more than 24 times over, with $2.4 million to your name. Yep, that’s right, under FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ, Carter and Clinton, you’d be rockin’ and rollin’. Under the Republicans, your wallet would be extremely thin indeed.
Don’t like doing this analysis with the Dow? That’s fine, the authors also use a “blended rate.” In that case, Advantage Blue Team is even more pronounced, as your initial $100,000 investment would now be worth $3.9 million (thank you Democrats!), but just $126,000 under Republicans (boo! hiss! fail!).
Finally, how do the presidents stack up in a ranking of purely financial criteria (forget about winning World War II, establishing Social Security and Medicare, and other “minor” stuff like that – heh – in other words)? Again, huge advantage to the Democrats. On the “Overall” rankings, note that #6-#11 (the worst ones) are overwhelmingly filled with Republican names (in reverse order of suckitude: Hoover, Dubya, Nixon/Ford, Carter, and Reagan. #FAIL for Republicans, in other words.
At the top of the list, in glaring contrast, are overwhelmingly Democrats (note: although Ike was nominally a Republican, by today’s standards he’d be a moderate or even progressive Democrat) (in descending order of greatness: JFK/LBJ, Clinton, FDR, Eisenhower, and Truman. It’s a similar deal on the other rankings, as you can see for yourself from the chart on the “flip.”
Finally, with regard to President Obama, the authors write that “his first term and his economic legacy is yet to be concluded,” but point out that Obama’s “had to work with the most dysfunctional and vitriolic Congress and political climate in modern history” (thanks Teapublicans!).
I’d remind everyone that on a wide variety of indicators, we are far, far better off than we were 4 years ago at this time. Today, thanks in large part to Democratic policies (and certainly no thanks to Republicans, who have tried to slow things down and stop every possible move in the right direction, all with the hyper-partisan goal of making Barack Obama a one-term president), the housing market’s turning around, the auto industry’s doing well, the stock market’s booming, we’re gaining jobs as opposed to losing 800,000 jobs per month as in Bush’s last month in office, etc, etc. In short, we’re well on the way towards digging ourselves out of the complete mess Republicans left the country in after 8 years if misrule. Check your 401k, IRA, etc, and chances are you’ll see it there too, just as you would have if you had invested $100,000 at any time over the past 80 years under Democratic presidents, but certainly not under Republican ones. Does that clarify your thinking about this election at all? 🙂
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