Is there any measurable way the country does better with Republican presidents?

Mina said:
I thought of another possibility for an area where Republicans might have done better: teen birth rates. Republicans at least frame themselves as a "family values" party, and opposed to things like premarital sex, so in theory they might have done better lowering the teen birth rates.

Turns out that didn't happen, though. In the average year with a Republican president, the teen birth rate fell about 0.5625 points, versus 1.71429 points during the average year with a Democratic president. So, the rate of improvement was a little over three times as fast when Democrats were in the Oval Office:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.ADO.TFRT?end=2020&locations=US&start=1960&view=chart

Any other ideas?
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Republican performance is better for both teen birth rate and average annual poverty rate. I made posts with this data.
 
Flash said:
What Biden policy(ies) caused high inflation and supply chain holes?
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More regulations on drilling, prohibiting in ANWAR...
The Biden administration on Monday reversed a Trump administration plan that would have allowed the government to lease more than two-thirds of the country's largest swath of public land to oil and gas drilling
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Biden+stopped+drilling+in+ANWAR
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i'd have to reseach more details, but oil companies are quoted as saying Biden injected a lot of uncertainty
and as a result we are still down by about 2 million barrels now then Trump,
Drilling is capitol intensive, and companies want stability before they commit

Then there was Spending Pallooza - much too much under Trump - because of a reaction to the bad decisions of lockdown. You can add Republicans here where you want to.

Biden gets more "infrastructure" that is heavily tilted to green and not much "shovel ready job"

Thank great Buddha Manchin stopped BBB - or we'd be ..in a really bad place
 
BartenderElite said:
Oh, my lord. I'll try saying it again: there is literally zero way economically that Biden's policies could be responsible for global inflation, that started 16 MONTHS AGO.

Do you think a Presidential policy can trigger something economically within a week?
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You say that, but it's not true. You know it's not true, therefore you are an intentional liar.

That's bad. That makes you a bad person.
 
Mina said:
In another thread, we were discussing the way that, on average, the country has had a much better private-sector job creation rate during Democratic presidencies than Republican ones. It got me thinking: is there ANY indicator you can think of where performance hasn't been better, on average, during Democratic presidencies?

Famously, the country has MUCH higher real GDP growth rates when Democrats are president, stronger median real income growth, and better stock market performance. Also, it's well established that while there has been a small net increase in poverty rates during Republican presidencies, there's been a gigantic net decrease in those rates during Democratic presidencies. Dem eras also look better when it comes to the change in the share of Americans covered by health insurance.

But surely there must be SOME indicator that looks better for the Republicans, right?

My first thought was maybe crime, since Republicans talk a good game when it comes to "law and order," and have been eager to incarcerate a large share of Americans to try to achieve that. There are two ways we could score that: average rates or change in rates.

Using the murder rate as a proxy, the average murder rate during Republican presidencies is 7.5 (going back to 1960 and up to 2020). The average during Democratic presidencies is 6.3.

Calculating it, instead, by the change in rates, on average murder rates fell 0.05 points during Democratic presidencies, and rose 0.6 points during Republican presidencies.

So, whichever way you calculate that, Democratic presidential eras look better.

https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_intentional_homicide_rate

The next thought that occurred to me is inflation, since Republicans are hawkish on that. Again, there are two main ways you could score that: the average inflation rate per year, or the change in the rate of inflation from the start of a presidency to the end. The former looks better for the Democrats (3.17%, average, versus 4.16% for Republicans). The latter, though, looks better for Republicans (largely on the strength of Reagan inheriting high rates and leaving fairly low ones).

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FPCPITOTLZGUSA#0

So, out of all the indicators I've thought of, Dems look better on all of them except inflation.... and that one depends on how you score it. Are there any others you can think of that look better for the Republicans?
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Repukes have done nothing to support or establish a society that serves its wellbeing and in a civilized manner. Repukes are at war against America and anything else of a civilized nature on Earth, and their war efforts against Democracy and society over the past 20 years, culminating in their failed effort to do a coup on Democracy n 2020 proved that. This includes repukes as officially verified who facilitated the foreign hacking of the 2016 election in the bitch of foreign enemies' tRump's gutter favor that came with a curse and no thanks to their brainwashed and hate mongering and addled minded voters. This atrocity in violation of the will of the majority that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and U.S. Constitutional law. This atrocity also includes repukes whoring with foreign enemies on the taxpayer dime to further undermine the common decency of humanity and the survival of civilization on Earth. To run with tRump and his repuke mob in the counsels of their sewer even against their own ignorant, uncivilized and treasonous voters, basically amounts for someone to be ok at eventually burning in hell for an eternity on their body and soul:

The Real Threat to American Democracy
It’s not Republican politicians. It’s their conspiracy-addled voters.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics...-republican-politicians-voters-democracy.html
 
Flash said:
Are you saying during Democratic presidents their policies caused the teen birth rate to decline faster than under Republicans presidents and then, when a Republican replaced a Democrat the birth rate continued to decline under the Republican policy but at a slower rate?
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I wouldn't state it quite that simply. There are a whole bunch of factors in the mix at any given time, so the data is going to be really noisy. But, yes, I think presidential policies are one of those factors, and that the fact the Democrat-led eras saw stronger trends isn't a coincidence.... it's at least in part because of superior policy.

Remember, it takes a year for a new president's budget and many of his policies to take effect.
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Sometimes. Although the new budget year doesn't start until the October after a president takes office, there are supplemental appropriations that can start immediately.... such as the emergency COVID payments Biden lined up in the spring of 2021. And, of course, the executive agencies start to pivot right after inauguration day, with new direction from the top and new agency heads. That's particularly important with something like teen pregnancy, where a bad president might, say, use the executive branch powers to promote the cult of chastity. That tends to result in higher rates of teen pregnancy (since teens form a mindset that they're going to wait for marriage, and then aren't prepared with contraception when they make a spur-of-the-moment decision to have sex). When a good president uses his power to install public health officials and other figures in social agencies who have realistic and science-based approaches to issues like that, it can pay dividends quickly. Even just using previously-appropriated budgets, they can improve their messaging and outreach from day one.

What Democratic policy and which Republican policy caused those declines to occur?
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I explained one, above. The misuse of presidential power to promulgate Christian taboos around sexuality has been very bad news when it comes to teen pregnancy. As indicated, you can see that not just with teen birth rates dropping faster during Democratic administrations than Republican ones, but also with the lower teen birth rates in more liberal states. In such states, the approach to these issues is more about protecting kids from the risks of unprotected sex, and less about promoting a religious fetish around virgin brides. When you're working to protect children rather than to evangelize celibacy before marriage, the results improve. You can also see that when it comes to STD's. The states with the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases are AK, MS, LA, SC, and NM. Not coincidentally, four out of five of those are hard-right states, and none is very liberal.

https://www.everlywell.com/blog/sti-testing/std-rates-by-state/

It is hard to believe Clinton's liberal leadership caused teens to have less sex or Bush's abstinence policy.
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You've basically summed up the issue, right there. Democrats see the objective as being to protect kids -- to make sure that any sex they are having is consensual, and that they're armed with the knowledge and equipment needed to make sure it doesn't result in a pregnancy or disease. Republicans see the objective as being to enforce their religion's sexual taboos against children. When a leader focuses on protecting kids, kids are protected better. When a leader uses kids as pawns in a proxy war over faith, bad shit happens.

Average per presidential term:
Clinton 56.6
Clinton: 49.5
Bush: 42.3
Bush: 40.6
Obama: 33.2
Obama: 23.3
Trump: 17
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Exactly, big declines in averages under Democrats, small ones under Republicans.

....I bet you are having problems believing Trump's policies caused the lowest birth rate, but that is the argument that you are making.
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It definitely isn't. If you HONESTLY think that's the argument I'm making, reread. If you're only PRETENDING to think that's the argument I'm making, stop and consider whether an honest approach to this discussion might serve us better.

As for red and blue states, we both know teen birth rate is related to socio-economic class and the blue states have a higher class with fewer poor minorities than many of the red states.
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It's not clearly correlated with socio-economic class. Maine, for instance, is our 12th-poorest state, in terms of GDP per capita. Alaska is our 9th richest (and it's been as high as second in recent years). Yet the teen birth rate in Maine is quite low (10th lowest in the country), and in Alaska it's above average (18th highest). But yes, mismanagement of red-state economies by their conservative leaders probably does contribute to the problem. And part of that is probably the divergence of median income and GDP per capita in red states. They often tailor policy around the rich, such that incomes for most people don't really reflect how much wealth is in the state. Texas is another good example, with the 20th-highest GDP per capita, but that wealth so concentrated that it also has the 12th-highest poverty rate. It's a fairly rich state that looks, for all the world, like a poor one. That results in it having sky-high teen birth rates and other sociological problems we'd expect from a dirt-poor state, rather than an above-average one.

As for "fewer minorities," that is a powerfully attractive explanation for right-wingers, because nothing is more tempting than blaming political failures on "those people." But the numbers don't really support the idea that diversity is destiny. Massachusetts has the lowest teen birth rate in the country. Depending on how you define "minority," it's somewhere between median and well above median when it comes to the share of minorities. It's got the 26th-highest percent of white residents, which puts it right in the middle. In terms of percent foreign-born, it's the seventh-highest of any state, so a lot of diversity there. It also has high religious diversity -- a lot of states are practically all Protestant, whereas Massachusetts has a diverse mix of Catholics, Protestants, atheists, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. So, it's clearly possible to have a diverse state with quite low birth rates. Connecticut is another example, with the fourth-lowest teen birth rates and demographic diversity about on par with Massachusetts. Or consider New Jersey or New York. They have the sixth- and eighth-lowest teen birth rates, respectively. They have the eleventh and thirteenth lowest percentage of white people of any states. That's a lot of minorities, and yet low teen birth rates.

Or look at it the other way. West Virginia and Kentucky aren't exactly setting the standard for racial diversity, or diversity of any kind. They're packed with white, Protestant, native-born Americans. They're our third and tenth whitest states, yet have the eighth and sixth highest birth rates for teens. Turns out lousy leadership and a diseased culture will cause problems no matter how few minorities you have.
 
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