The Party of Growth

Republican advocates claim that their party is interested in growth, while the Democrats are only interested in redistribution. Well, the Republican Party may be interested in growth, but they are remarkably inept at delivering growth. From 1948 until 2008, there were 15 administrations. The four with the highest rates of growth were all Democratic. The seven with the lowest rates of growth were all Republican. The two best-performing Republican administrations and the two worst-performing Democratic administrations were grouped quite close together.

The growth is measured by the change in Annualized Real Gross Domestic Product from the first quarter in the inaugural year (the quarter in which the inauguration occurs) to the first quarter of the next inaugural year. There are other ways of measuring economic growth, and each of them would show slightly different specifics. There is no reasonable measurement, however, which shows Republican administrations outperforming Democratic administrations. (Even if you hypothesize a 4-year lead time, so that each administration is credited with the growth during the next, the Democrats come out somewhat better.)

The average growth rate during Democratic administrations is 4.6% / year, and no Republican administration has come anywhere near that high for the entire term. The average growth rate during Republican administrations is 2.4% / year, and no Democratic administration has had growth anywhere near that low for an entire term. Obama's recovery from the Bush train wreck may be slow enough to change the second sentence, but it will not lower the Democratic average low enough to get a Republican term near it.

Let's first see the administrations in order of growth.

The RAGDP is first for the inaugural quarter, and then for the next inaugural quarter. Both 4-year growth and annual growth are ratios. The annual growth ratios are chosen so that the fourth power of each is the 4-year growth ratio. I've followed these with the percent increase, first for the 4-year term, and then the annualized rate. Your eye should tell you how that follows from the preceding figure.

So, why should you believe Frank Palmer? You shouldn't. You should check it out. First, the same data in the original, historical order. (At this point, the RAGDP gets a little repetitive.)

I might note that only one of the Democratic administrations in this list had less growth than the previous administration. all but one of the Republican administrations in this list had less growth than the previous administration.

Anyway, you can check the St. Louis Federal Reserve reports on real GDP to see that my reports on RAGDP are correct.

[If you're really paranoid, you can get the print form of The Economic Report of the President in many depositary libraries. (There is one depositary library in each congressional district.) Most of these figures -- not the most recent ones -- are in ERPs put out by the Council of Economic Advisers for Republican presidents. The Real GDP is given in dollars for a particular year. Since the sources I used give the value in 20005 dollars, the RGDP values will not be the same. The ratios should be the same to several digits.]

Then check my division. Admittedly, checking my work means a lot of arithmetic, especially if you check my fourth roots. Still, any small sample would detect a fraud if I were committing fraud. (For that matter, the order of the terms doesn't require the annual growth and percentage figures at all. Checking my fourth roots only verifies the arithmetic, not the ordering.)