Obama the Anti Reagan

With all the pundits proclaiming Obama's inauguration speech as "Reaganesque" I thought a comparison was in order.

Reagan came into office amid the worst recession since the Great Depression. He cut government spending by 5% across the board or $31 billion.($178B in 2011 dollars).

He cut marginal tax rates by 25% across the board. Federal income tax revenues doubled in 5 years!, Unemployment fell from 12% to 6.8%, Inflation fell from 12.8% to 3.2%. Interest rates fell form 21.5% to 8.6%. And the economy grew by 5-6.6%/yr.

Obama entered office to the worst recession since 1982.

He INCREASED spending by more than $1 trillion/ yr. He increased regulation, and gave more than $132 billion to his largest donors and bundlers.

Income tax revenues are stagnant. Unemployment has risen from 7.8% to 10.1%, only falling due to people leaving the labor force. If the LFP rate were the same as it was in Jan. 2009, the unemployment rate would be 10.9% today. GDP growth is stagnant at 1.7%. The Debt has increased by $6 trillion in four years. Trillion dollar deficits every year, and promised for the next ten.

As we can see Obama is the Anti Reagan. While Reagan believed in the power of the individual, Obama believes in the power of Government.