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The results were surprising to me and even shocking to those faithful to the
Republican theories of economic prosperity. It turns out that the average annual
change in Real GDP during Republican administrations was 2.8 percent while the
annual change in Real GDP during Democratic administrations was 4.4 percent. The
overall average was 3.5 percent. A statistical test indicated that the chance of
obtaining this result due to random chance was nine out of 1000. One way of
interpreting these numbers is that the average business can expect an average
increase in output above inflation of 2.8 percent during Republican years and 4.4
percent during Democratic years.
For those who like to track individual presidents' performances, the two best
Democratic performers were Truman (6.7 percent) and Johnson (5.2 percent). The
two best Republican performers were Nixon at 3.6 percent and Regan at 3.4
percent. The two worst Democratic performers were Carter at 3.3 percent and
Clinton at 3.7 percent. The two worst Republican performers were Ford (1.5
percent) and George W. Bush (1.6 percent). Interestingly, only one Republican
(Nixon) performed better than the national average of 3.5 while all Democratic
presidents except Carter were above average. Ironically only Richard Nixon
performed better than the poorest performing Democrat.
Thus, the notion that the Republican Party is the most beneficial to business
performance is not supported according to these data. Rather, these data clearly
show that businesses perform better under Democratic Administrations than there
Republican counterparts.
Perhaps, my dear friends, we may be seeing a cherished myth begin to fall under
the weight of the empirical evidence. It does appear that business' support of the
Republican Party may have the unintended consequence of slowing the growth of
the economy.
Dr. Carl Summers is an independent consultant and research methodologist. His background spans the worlds of academia, evaluation consulting and public sector evaluation. He specializes in psychometrics, evaluation design, proposal writing and program evaluation. His portfolio of projects includes such diverse topic areas as high stakes testing, international program evaluation, health program evaluation including HIV/AIDS and alcohol abuse, and educational program effectiveness. He writes the weekly commentary A Voter's Guide to Political Party Performance using official government and industry statistics to evaluate the two political parties in the online magazine www.outsidersdc.com
Voter's Guide to Political Party Performance:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 2a
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
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