In the New York Times David Leonhardt and Yaryna Serkez point out that the U.S. economy has historically done better under Democratic presidents than under Republican presidents.
Since 1933, the economy has grown at an annual average rate of 4.6 percent under Democratic presidents and 2.4 percent under Republicans, according to a Times analysis. In more concrete terms: The average income of Americans would be more than double its current level if the economy had somehow grown at the Democratic rate for all of the past nine decades. If anything, that period (which is based on data availability) is too kind to Republicans, because it excludes the portion of the Great Depression that happened on Herbert Hoover’s watch.
The article goes on to try to answer why the economy is strong under Democratic administrations. One over-riding and plausible explanation is:
Democrats have been more willing to heed economic and historical lessons about what policies actually strengthen the economy, while Republicans have often clung to theories that they want to believe – like the supposedly magical power of tax cuts and deregulation. Democrats, in short, have been more pragmatic.
After reviewing some other possibilities and examining what happened under various Presidents, the article turns to recent history.
The past year has offered another case study. Mr. Trump repeatedly downplayed the coronavirus pandemic, and the country suffered. The economy would have experienced a downturn no matter who was president, but his scattered response aggravated the pandemic and the recession. In some other countries, life is much closer to normal. In the United States, Mr. Trump became the first president since Hoover to preside over a decline in employment.
The whole article is worth a read, but I’d say the moral of the story is this: If you want a strong economy, elect a Democrat as President.
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