"Reagan inherited a worse economy from Carter than Obama did from Bush..."

[kentuck]

That is what Rush Limbaugh just said on his show.

As I recall, inflation was the big problem in the Carter years? The high interest rates were initiated by Paul Volcker to control the inflation. However, Carter was still creating jobs, moreso than Reagan did in his first four years, as I recall?

But, in my opinion, Rush probably actually believes what he said as do many of his listeners. I think he is wrong. I think we were near catastrophe when Bush left office.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. The problem with D Cup is that he knows it's bullshit. He has some serious contempt for the morons

who listen to him.

[SharonAnn]

19. Inflation was also a problem in the Ford years and the Nixon years, don't forget.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

21. But there's no comparison or very little between

'81 and '09.

[CBGLuthier]

22. W.I.N.

Saw an All in the Family the other day that mentioned Ford's pathetic WIN button program.

Whip
Inflation
Now


For those who were not alive. Who says republicans don't have any ideas about how to run an economy.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. There's Not A Credible Economist Who Would Agree With Him

Here's a list of recessions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States

[JHB]

18. Who needs credible economists when you have a gullible audience?

To dittoheads, simply invoking the names Carter, Clinton, or Obama justifies any awful claim about Democrats. Facts are irrelevant.

They've always been at war with Eastasia.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

3. Rush knows better,

but his listeners don't. I think we should just assume that the fools who tune into his 3 hours of hate will always vote for the most regressive candidate they can...

[jmowreader]

5. ...and the first.thing he did was make it worse

Reagan's infamous tax cut and the spending cuts it forced suppressed the GDP by 4.5 percent and increased unemployment to 10.8 percent. The so-called Reagan economic miracle happened after he embraced Keynesianism.

[hfojvt]

6. the answer, my friend, is blowing in my journal

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/142

"Remembering the Carter years and the Reagan 'stimulus'". Check it out for a quick history lesson.

Of course, everything you need to know you can learn from my journal.

Mostly because reading my journal is a lot like going to kindergarten.

[kentuck]

7. Thanks!

Very informative.

[hfojvt]

8. and another example of where I swatted down that myth

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/100

"Let's just put that little myth to rest. For one thing, the unemployment rate was 5.4% in January 2008. There were 144,607,000 Americans employed in January 2008 and only 140,436,000 employed a year later. That's 4.1 million lost jobs. In Reagan's term employment numbers went from a high of 100,378,000 to a low (after some ups and downs) fifteen months later of 99,032,000. I guess 1.3 million lost jobs is almost as bad as 4.1 million. Wait, let's use the Bush trick and talk about the PERCENTAGE of lost jobs. Then it's 1.3% for Reagan compared to 2.9% for Bush and we can say they are almost the same.

And unemployment rate went to 11% in 1983, this is true, but it was also 8.5% in 1981 and 8.3% in 1983. So 10.8% is not the same now as it was then. We hit record lows of unemployment in the 1990s that most economists thought was impossible. Economists used to say that a 5% unemployment rate was "full employment"."

[Jack Rabbit]

9. Sixty-year-old Rabbit weighs in

I was born the same year as Rush (1951). The economy was never in worse shape in my lifetime and his than it was in 2009 when the Frat Boy left the office he usurped.

To say that Rush is wrong is to say a lot more about how bad things were under the usurper than it says about how great things were under President Carter. Inflation was a big problem under Carter. I was married in 1979 and our first child was born in 1980. Under those circumstances starting a family seemed like a dicey proposition. Contrary to what Kentuck implies in the OP, job creation under Carter was weak, not appreciably better than it had been under President Ford. Of course, that was a long way from the way the economy was hemorrhaging jobs under the usurper.

[DLine]

10. Ive been hearing this one for a while from righties..

Of course they are merely parroting what they heard from Rush or some other GOP shill and can't explain how it was worse. But its been out there a while.

[onehandle]

11. Total Bullshit. nt

[deaniac21]

12. That was all Ford's fault.

[ProSense]

13. It's absolute bullshit, even

if people are digging into inflation data, which they aren't.


Consecutive job losses August 1981 to December 1982: 17 months, -2.8 million jobs. (Also note, the job losses started during Reagan's term.)


Job losses/weak gains April 1990 to September 1992: 30 months, -723,000 jobs


Job losses/weak gains June 2000 to December 2003: 43 months -1.6 million jobs.


Consecutive job losses February 2008 to February 2010: 25 months, -8.8 million jobs

Years can be pluged in here: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=net_1mth

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021302622

[bulloney]

14. Carter inherited a bad economy from Nixon/Ford.

I remember Nixon imposing a 90 day wage and price freeze in 1971 due to runaway inflation. I remember Ford's Whip Inflation Now campaign where everyone was wearing "WIN" buttons. Unemployment was high during the Nixon/Ford administrations, too.

Republicans want to control the dialogue to make it sound like the economic problems of the 70s were all under Carter. The economy sucked under Carter, but it sucked for several years before he took office.

[Efilroft Sul]

15. Jobs created under Carter: 10.3 million. Jobs created under Bush 43: 1.95 million.

And Wall Street imploded under the Dim Son. Rush lies all the time, all the time Rush lies.

[bulloney]

16. On a per annual basis, there were more jobs created under Carter than Reagan.

I think there were around 18 million jobs created under 8 years of Reagan.

The Reagan presidency was an 8-year Weekend at Bernie's for Republicans. They've made so much crap up on Reagan and have said it for so long that they actually believe their lies now.

[B Calm]

17. Rush is wrong! We had

plenty of high paying union jobs and the automobile companies were not facing bankruptcy. Inflation was the big problem, but I did enjoy getting 16% on my CDs, just wished I had more money back then to invest.

[WinkyDink]

20. Rush doesn't believe a word he says, and that includes "Hello." He sells snake-oil to SUCKAHS!