THE "BLINDERS OF THE RIGHT"!

There's a right-wing ad campaign out there called "never find out" that seeks to get John McCain elected by (you guessed it) scaring people into "never finding out" what an Obama Presidency would look like. One of their funnier commercials favorably compares Ronald Reagan's economic principles to McCain's:

Now while I'm fine with the comparison, I'm simply amazed that the creator of this ad doesn't see the problem with this logic. I mean if you seek to compare McCain to Reagan, then you could logically compare Obama's economic plan to Bill Clinton's - and the truth is that Reagan can't hold a candle to Clinton's economic growth over eight years.

As is said in the commercial, Reagan created 14 million jobs during his Presidency, while Clinton created 22 million during his. As Business Week puts it:

Yet despite different fiscal policies, the macroeconomic outcomes were remarkably similar. Under Reagan, lower taxes and a soaring budget deficit produced a growth rate of 3.4%. Under Bill Clinton, higher taxes and a budget surplus generated growth of 3.6%. Throughout both Presidencies, from 1982 to 2000, interest rates fell and the stock market roared. So much for ideology.

There were differences, of course. Under Clinton, unemployment was lower than under Reagan, poverty declined more, and wages rose faster for ordinary workers.

That's right, under Clinton not only did the economy grow at at unprecedented rate, but he actually PAID DOWN the National Debt during his eight years in office. Unlike Reagan, who began a long tradition of Republican "credit card government" topped off with the disastrous Dubya Presidency. Take a look at this graph:
So not only did Reagan run up the debt during his "successful economic plan", he also deregulated enough to experience a $100+ billion-dollar bailout of The Federal Savings and Loan system. Hmmmm... sound familiar?

Nice try guys. Maybe you are better off peddling the "associations" of Obama - rather than trying to sell McCain's pathetic "same as Dubya" economic plan.