Reagan added 18 million new jobs and added twice the revenue to the Treasury than Carter did, all during a recession.
Oh, geez. First off, Reagan lost jobs during the 81-82 recession. All the job growth under his administration happened from 82-89. (When there was no recession.)
And you're going to bring Carter into it, he created more jobs per year than Reagan did. The only recent President to do worse than Reagan in job creation, as a matter of fact, is G.H.W. Bush.
Dig it:Job Growth Per Year Under Most Recent Presidents
Code: Select all
Johnson 3.8%
Carter 3.1
Clinton 2.4
Kennedy 2.3
Nixon 2.3
Reagan 2.1
Bush 0.6
And, of course,
G.W. Bush could well become the first President since Herbert Hoover to actually have negative job growth. He's lost so many so far it would take a hell of a rally just to come out even.
Want more? Check this out (from the Bureau of Labor Statistics):
ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.ceseeb1.txt
What does this tell us? Two things that catch my eye:
- Back in the "good old days" of the 50s (under Eisenhower), job growth was pretty darn stagnant. They had to add two states to the country just to juice the job numbers.
- Jobs have gone down in the following years since 1961: 1975 (under Ford), 1982 (under Reagan), 1991 (under Bush Sr.), and 2002 (under Bush Jr.). 2003 is almost certain to be down as well, unless something freaking amazing happens next month. 2004 will probably be up.
Looks like if you want job growth, vote Democrat.
Now, revenue. This is when I love this stuff -- let's use the Heritage Foundation's numbers:
http://www.heritage.org/research/featur ... r2big.html
According to this, total government revenue increased 61.5% over the course of Carter's term. Over the course of Reagan's term? 12.2% (due to a massive loss of revenue from corporate taxes).
How that equates to "added twice the revenue to the Treasury than Carter did" I have no idea, unless the poster has forgotten that Reagan served two terms and Carter only one.
Ryan
