Federal employment is 1.1% of civilian population in April 2025: This is the swamp billionaires want to drain

 The worst it ever got was 2.4% in December 1952 while Truman was still president.

The leisure class of state capitalism has to have something to complain about. 

 

Kamala Harris isn't the first Democrat to demonize a Republican as Hitler: It's a family tradition with a long history that works

 CHICAGO, Oct. 25 -- A Republican victory on election day will bring a Fascistic threat to American freedom that is even more dangerous than the perils from communism and extreme right "crackpots," President Truman asserted here tonight. ...

Truman prevailed by 4.48 points, winning 303 Electoral College votes.

 

 

It's Clear From John Kelly's Comments That Trump Is a Fascist

 

Kamala Harris, PBS

 

Hero, part two

 

Hero

 

Hi, I'm president Joe Biden and the buck stops with COVID-19, Vladimir Putin, and high fuel costs, not with me

 Joe just wants you to forget that his anti-fossil fuel policies pushed gasoline from $2.09 to $3.44 in one year from his election, that he did nothing to dampen the NATO connections with Ukraine which have inflamed Putin, and that he failed to shut down the virus.

He also omits that his ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan broadcast the very weakness which was later on display when he promised Putin that US and NATO troops would not get involved in Ukraine. 

"Step right this way, Vladimir!"

Harry Truman knew where the buck stopped, Trump just keeps blaming bad laws which never stopped Obama from deporting

Presidential weakness encourages more Central Americans to risk it.

Alan Blinder's alternative facts about the politics of GDP

Alan Blinder, Bill Clinton's Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, quoted and discussed here:

“Here is an interesting historical fact. Since Harry Truman, the growth rate has fallen every time a Republican president replaced a Democrat and has risen every time a Democrat has replaced a Republican.”

No, not every time, in either case.

Nixon/Ford current dollar GDP growth (Republican) was better than previous JFK/LBJ GDP (Democrat), up 100% vs. 80%.

And Obama current dollar GDP growth (Democrat) was worse following Bush GDP (Republican), up 30% vs. 39%.

For best growth of current dollar GDP in the post-war, Democrat presidents own positions one and four covering 12 years, but Republicans own positions two and three covering 16 years:

Carter: 13.5%

Nixon/Ford: 12.5%

Reagan: 10.1%

JFK/LBJ: 10.0%.

Four Republican administrations lasting 8 years each have averaged 8.2% in the post-war, and four Democrat administrations lasting 8 years each have averaged 7.5%.

Democrat Carter's 4 years at 13.5% easily beats Bush 41's 4 years at 6.0%, but this hardly offsets the better Republican performance over the long haul compared with the Democrat (see here for the figures).

Michael Warren of The Weekly Standard is convinced the polls are right because they are "scientific"

The guy probably believes the Arctic is ice-free, too.

Here:

Cohen's obstinate challenge to the plain fact that scientific polls show Trump is losing indicates this head-in-the-sand mentality has permeated the culture in Trump World. Remember, it's not spin if you believe it.

Howard Dean thinks a president must have a college degree, unless the president is a Democrat

Yeaaaaaaahhhhhh!

Seen here:

SCARBOROUGH: Are you serious? You're saying [Scott Walker] might not be qualified because he didn't finish college?

DEAN: I think there are going to be a lot of people who worry about that. 

SCARBOROUGH: Do you worry about people that don't finish college? 

DEAN: I worry about people being President of the United States not knowing much about the world and not knowing much about science. I worry about that. 

SCARBOROUGH: Oh my God. Let's name the people that didn't finish college that have changed this world. 

DEAN: Harry Truman, who was a great president, there's no question about it.

Under Harry Truman Federal Spending Was Slashed More Than Two Thirds

Between fiscal years 1945 and 1948 inclusive federal spending declined 67.85%, from $92.7 billion in 1945 to $29.8 billion in 1948. By the end of fiscal 1952 spending increased back up to $67.7 billion, but still 27% lower than in 1945.

Real GDP declined 9.4% from January 1945 to January 1949, but rebounded 28% by the time he left office four years later.

Who says we can't cut the size of government dramatically and still grow like gangbusters?

Obama Biographies Deliberately Omitted That His Mentor Was A Flaming Communist

Including for the Associated Press, and both biographies by John Meacham and David Remnick.

Herbert Meyer, here:

For example, during the 2008 presidential campaign, the Associated Press ran two articles about Obama's life in Hawaii, one specifically about Frank [Marshall Davis]. The AP described him to voters desperate for insight about the Democratic candidate merely as an advocate of "civil rights amid segregation" and a crusader for the U.S. Constitution. The only Frank quote the AP offered its readers -- chosen from decades of vicious, anti-American newspaper columns Frank wrote in Hawaii -- was this: "I refuse to settle for anything less than all the rights which are due me under the Constitution."

Newsweek's John Meacham told readers only that Frank wrote about "civil rights and labor issues." David Remnick, who wrote for The Washington Post, who now is editor of The New Yorker, and who authored The Bridge, which to date is perhaps the most comprehensive biography of our president, managed to completely ignore Frank's communist ideology and told readers only that Frank "wrote fierce columns about the suppression of unions, conditions on the plantation, the power of oligarchic Hawaiian families, race relations." Somehow, this Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist failed to notice -- or chose to ignore -- Frank's incendiary, near-treasonous columns blasting Harry Truman and the Marshall Plan, accusing the U.S. of trying to re-Nazify Germany, and defending the Soviet Union at every turn.

Truman Cut Spending Big Time In 1945. The Economy Boomed.

Speaker John Boehner, wake up.

Arnold Kling, here:

When World War II ended in 1945, President Harry Truman faced a problem. Public opinion called for a rapid demobilization that would bring the boys home as soon as possible. But the Keynesians who were gaining prominence in the economics profession warned that a rapid decline in government spending and the size of the public work force would produce, in the late economist Paul Samuelson’s words, “the greatest period of unemployment and dislocation which any economy has ever faced.”

Thankfully, Truman ignored the Keynesians. Government spending plummeted by nearly two-thirds between 1945 and 1947, from $93 billion to $36.3 billion in nominal terms. If we used the “multiplier” of 1.5 for government spending that is favored by Obama administration economists, that $63.7 billion plunge should have caused GDP to fall by $95 billion, a 40 percent economic decline. In reality, GDP increased almost 10 percent during that period, from $223 billion in 1945 to $244.1 billion in 1947. This is a rare precedent of a large drop in government spending, so its economic consequences are important to understand.

Can Liberals Count? Can Liberals Remember?

George Bush won Ohio in 2004 by 118,000 votes, but Andrew Sullivan remembers it differently, here:

"At this point in 2004, one recalls, George W. Bush was about to see a near eight-point lead shrivel to a one-state nail-biter by Election Day."

The real nail-biters were in Iowa, where Bush won by just 10,000 popular votes (7 electoral college votes), and in New Mexico, where Bush won by just 6,000 popular votes (5 electoral college votes), neither of which separately or together would have given victory to Democrat John Kerry.

Be that as it may, the real point of Sullivan's story is this:

"If Obama wins, to put it bluntly, he will become the Democrats’ Reagan."

Ah, no, he'll become the Democrats' W, or maybe their George H. W. Bush. Or if he's really really lucky maybe their Richard Nixon.

Obama's economic performance in the next four years would have to improve by 40 percent in seven key categories of economic measurement in comparison with all previous presidents to achieve the fair-to-poor record achieved by Ronald Reagan, whom I have shown elsewhere scored a lousy 42, just like Jimmy Carter.

President Obama's current score after 4 years is already 2 points worse than George Bush's score of 51 after 8 years, the worst two records in the post-war period. That means Obama would have to pull out  of his hat a veritable golden age to make him look as good as Reagan, which as I've said isn't saying much. To do it Obama would have to score a 32 in the next four years just to average out to a 42.

Can you imagine an Obama second term turning in an overall performance roughly close to that of JFK/LBJ, who rank 4th best out of 10 since WWII? Because that is what it would take.

Obama would have to go from worst for unemployment to 4th (think Clinton and W), starting tomorrow. He would have to go from worst to 4th for GDP (think Reagan and Eisenhower), for the next four years. He would have to go from worst to 4th for housing values (think Harry Truman). Only George Bush has been worse for the increase in Americans' total household net worth than Obama has been. To address that Obama would have to restore at least 1960s levels of prosperity to the country, if not Clinton era levels.

Fat chance.

Despite all the ruin which one man can rain down on a country through sheer incompetence and arrogance, the American people are a resilient lot and things will improve no matter who gets elected. The economy adjusts and moves on, and in many respects there is only one way to go but up. But if it's Obama who is elected again, I don't expect him to finish much better than a 48 after 8 years overall, because the first 4 have been such a disaster.