Last night in his speech before the Democratic National Convention, former President Bill Clinton made the startling assertion that since the end of the Cold War in 1989 Democratic Party Presidents have created 50 million new jobs while their Republican counterparts were have managed to create only 1 million of the same. Bill said that even he had a hard time believing the disparity and had to triple check the numbers before using them in his speech. Apparently a lot of other folks had a hard time believing the numbers also because the fact checkers immediately went to work. But there were absolutely no lies in what Bill said:
Bill Clinton is right. Since the end of the cold war in 1989, America has created about 51 million new jobs. The score is Dems 50, GOP 1. If ppl ever figure out that all Republicans ever do is enrich themselves, they'll never win another election. #DNC2024 pic.twitter.com/w05hzhrB4Z
— Bill Madden (@maddenifico) August 22, 2024
Phillip Bump conducted the fact check for the Washington Post and published his findings this morning here.
“Former president Bill Clinton, speaking during the third night of the Democratic convention on Wednesday, presented a bit of data meant to promote his party — and, indirectly, his period in office.
“You’re going to have a hard time believing this, but so help me, I triple-checked it,” Clinton began. “Since the end of the Cold War in 1989, America has created about 51 million new jobs. I swear I checked this three times. Even I couldn’t believe it. What’s the score? Democrats 50, Republicans one”……This is one measure, obviously selected for effect. But Clinton’s not wrong.
There have been six presidents since 1989, three from each party. Under the three Democrats — Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden — there was a cumulative increase of 50 million more people working between the starts of their terms and the ends. Under the three Republicans — George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump — the cumulative total was, in fact, only 1 million. (That’s starting at the beginning of the elder Bush’s term, not the fall of the Berlin Wall a few months later that marked the start of the Cold War’s demise.)“
Bump provided the following graph to illustrate the huge disparity:
He also added the following caveat, which I will follow with my comments…
“It’s also the case that both George W. Bush and Trump saw calamities during their presidencies that significantly reduced employment: the recession under Bush and the coronavirus pandemic under Trump. But you can also see how this brings us back to the uncertainties just mentioned. Could the job loss during those events have been more limited under different presidents?”
While it is true that George W. Bush weathered a pretty serious recession at the beginning of his term, I remember very well that he began bad mouthing the economy shortly after his being gifted the Presidency by the Supreme Court and before his inauguration. I was visiting my sister in Vegas when he came out with his remarks in December of 2000 and remember asking her what she thought the purpose of his contentions were. We couldn’t figure it out. While it is true that Clinton’s robust economic growth began to slow in the third quarter of 2000, I have always felt that Bush and his friends slipped the economy a Micky and precipitated the recession to make their coming massive tax cut for the rich more palatable.
Besides, one would think that the massive expenditures brought about by W’s war on terror would bring about some job growth… wasn’t the old trope that war is good for the economy in effect during the Bush years? And yet despite the trillions spent on the war Bush had the lousiest job creation record of even the three Republican Presidents represented. I guess building airbases in Afghanistan doesn’t create so many American jobs.
And the recession W. saddled Obama with was many times over more devastating than the one he had to respond to and Obama painfully worked through The Great Recession to build an economy that would add many millions of jobs in his second term.
And as for Trump and the economic calamities that COVID caused.. that was absolutely a self inflicted wound. Any mildly competent chief executive could have mitigated the worst effects of the pandemic, including the loss of hundreds of thousands lives… but Trump was anything but competent in his handling of the crisis.
Bump went further and looked at the numbers of jobs created since WWII, and though the disparity between the two parties was not quite so stark this case it is still significant:
If we extend the point backward a bit further, to the end of World War II, the difference is still striking. Each party has had seven presidents since that time, with 88 million jobs added under Democrats and 32 million under Republicans.
So, the next time the Republicans or the media tries to sell you the proposition that Republicans are better for the economy tell them to peddle that BS so,ewhere else.
Something we’ve always known, the country runs better under the Dems. Republicans only help themselves.
The 95% voting for Republicans…chickens voting for the butcher. Thanks Bill.
Here’s an important correction to that twiier post. Republicans aren’t enriching themselves. They are only enriching their already rich donors to Republican politicians and partisan members of the supreme court. The Republican hoi paloi are further impoverishing themselves.
Anyone who drives a car knows this.
Select D to go forward.
Select R to go backward.
We need more of this, dems talking irrefutable facts vs nonstop BS from the repubs.
There was no reason for the after effects of Covid, hell even for the actual pandemic, to be as bad as it was. Other countries did what they were supposed to do and weathered the disease and its effects on their economies much, much better than we did up until 2021-our change in leadership saved our asses. Another four years of von shitzinpants, if our nation did not tear itself apart, would have damaged our economy much more than Brexit did to Great Britain. We would have become a second world country with a piss-poor economy. We might even have needed wheelbarrows full of currency in order to do a small amount of shopping because inflation would have continued to increase–tax cuts for the wealthy and craporations does NOTHING to create jobs, lower inflation, nothing except line the pockets of those who don’t need their pockets lined. It’s been a bit of a haul but President Biden managed to get our economy in order and create conditions conducive to job creation. Ask employers sometime how easy it is to find workers-it’s not because we are damned close to full employment.
We’re moving forward economically. Now it’s time for our country to progress in other areas. Past time in fact. Keeping shitzi out of the w.h. is merely a small step: getting rid of republicans/magats entirely is absolutely necessary.