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Ok, data analysis, round 2.

I don't really like the GDP part because it puts a lot of weight on the boom bust cycle of the economy. But you said you want to do this because of inflation. That's fair, so I found the annual inflation rate and added it to the calculations. (This is a particularly valid point because inflation was very high the first few year or two of Reagan's term so it has a strong affect on the numbers.) Now I'm subtracting the annual inflation rate from the percentage change in the country's budget. Here are the new numbers:

Ford (4 years) 2.6% average 10.4% total
Carter (4 years) 3.6% average 14.5% total
Reagan (8 yrs) 2.5% average 24.4% total
Bush 1 (4 yrs) 2.4% average 9.5% total
Clinton (8 yrs) 0.7% average 5.5% total
Bush 2 (8 yrs) 3.8% average 30.2% total (The NEW winner!)

So you're right, the high inflation rate at the beginning of Reagan's term really hurt him and his numbers dropped. He no longer holds the record of "expanded the federal government the most of all the recent presidents", that title now belongs to Bush 2! (with Reagan coming in a close second)

(Those are still some staggering differences between the republicans and the democrats. Bush 1 at least made a good showing.)

Inflation rate chart: http://www.miseryindex.us/irbyyear.asp

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The real rate, or the artificially manipulated "non-Farm" "seasonally adjusted" "haven't given up all hope yet" rate? The government didn't start tracking numbers until the 1940s so nobody knows what the unemployment rate was 160 years ago. Here's the official numbers since then. The unmanipulated numbers are significantly higher (even the U-6 numbers published by the DOL and ignored by everyone so they can cite the nicer-sounding U-3)

The entire concept of retirement is a technologically-aided invention, before we'd have worked everyone until they dropped dead or were ridiculously rich... and the ridiculously rich would still be working to manage their investments and doing the things that got them rich in the first place. Then the rich people said, "you know, I could hire someone to do this for me" and so brokers that did the work of fifty rich people were born. Now, there are places in the world where people will carry your umbrella and hold it over your head for you for a small fee, because there is no actually productive work for them. This is the future of the "service economy". I'll wipe your ass for a buck.

Please link to actual facts, not GW statement that it is. If you bother to actual fact check, you will note in order to for that statement to even be technically correct*, it only applies to a very specific 5 months. It's cherry picking.

Link: http://www.miseryindex.us/urbymonth.asp

Where's your link, Mr Please-link-to-actual-facts?

What, exactly, is that link supposed to prove?

Please link to actual facts, not GW statement that it is. If you bother to actual fact check, you will note in order to for that statement to even be technically correct*, it only applies to a very specific 5 months. It's cherry picking.

Link:
http://www.miseryindex.us/urbymonth.asp

Where's your link, Mr Please-link-to-actual-facts?

Even if it's "all congress" -- the Democrats can still claim responsibility for upswing. They already do: more jobs added in the last two years than during Bush's entire reign

Really? The unemployment rate in November of 2008 was 6.9%. Today, it's at 9.6%. So are you telling me that -2.7% is ADDING jobs? Were you a math major?

Oh, and like I've said... Bush had very little to do with the economy. Obama has little to do with the economy. It's congress. From 1995 to 2007, Republicans held the House. In that time, unemployment went from 5.6% to 4.6% with a low of 3.8% and a high of 6.3% (unemployment climbed form 9-11-2001 to June 2003 before dropping off again). The party that held the WH had little effect. It wasn't Bush's fault and it's not Obama's.

Numbers don't lie. Source:
http://www.miseryindex.us/urbymonth.asp

No, this is a lie. Unemployment was never under 4% under GWB, Jan of '01 it was at 4.2% and got progressively worse, until '06-'07, when it improved some before entering into the current slide. It was never under 4% under GWB

You may be right. But this graph does show it dropping below 4% early in Bush's term. I got my source. If yours is better we'll take it.

Enthusiasm in your beliefs is no substitute for factual inaccuracy. Like GP said, unemployment under Dubya was never under 4%, while under Clinton it decreased from 7.3 to 3.9.

Your belief that the recent global recession was caused by the 2007 shift of a few congressional seats in the US (as opposed to - say - being the inevitable consequence of a massive irresponsible lending boom fueled by half a decade of easy credit) is equally deluded. Show your work, show the acts of congress in 2007 that have led to the housing and construction crash (that started in 2006)...

GP does have the upper hand, I am sorry to say.

unemployment is at a record high

Not even close.

while some companies enjoy $11 billion-a-quarter profits

Yes, the employment situation would be much better if no companies were making money. By the way, Exxon paid $32 billion in taxes for that quarter. If you succeed in strangling their profits, you'll need to make that up somewhere.

Inflation is, well, inflating the price of goods, while most Americans' spending power is diminished.

Quite true. Perhaps we should stop burning food and causing its price to rise substantially.

I was just using the figures from the pages I linked to. The figures for government spending/debt/GDP only went back to 1978. The job figures went back to 1928, but I chose not to include Hoover, since negative 9% job growth during his administration would have reduced the Republicans' average to nearly nil. Since FDR also bucked the average (to a much lesser degree), I listed the Democrat average both with and without him. In another post I listed more detailed links for anyone who wants to do further research.

And while I'll admit that statistical analysis isn't the most precise means of examining presidential candidates, some correlations stand out: Over the past 75 years, job growth under Democrat presidents has been two and a half times that of Republican presidents. That's a pretty strong correlation. Every Democrat period (FDR/Truman, Kennedy/LBJ, Carter, Clinton) has left office with unemployment lower than when they took office. Every Republican period (Eisenhower, Nixon/Ford, Reagan/HW Bush, W Bush) has left with unemployment higher. That's a good correlation. The deficit has increased dramatically as a percentage of GDP during every Republican administration since Ford, but decreased under every Democrat administrations since Truman. In fact, you can see elbows on the graph between the Carter/Reagan-Bush/Clinton/Bush administrations. That's not a correlation, that's a statistical certainty.

"Lag time" / "long-term effects" wouldn't favor either party, especially since, over the past 75 years, parties have remained in power for anywhere from 4 to 20 years. If we assume a "lag" of 2-3 years, Reaganomics would been directly to blame for (HW) Bush's recession, Truman would have been the cause of the low unemployment during the first half of the Eisenhower administration, and (W) Bush's current woes would be, well, all his own fault.

But I'm not trying to argue specific cases. I'm just pointing out that there's a reasonable statistical correlation between a Democrat president and a good economy. So if you're not an economist, and you don't know all the gory details of macroeconomics, you at least stand a better chance of getting a winner if you pick the left-hand box. On the other hand, if you are an economist, you're apparently a Democrat anyway.

Because I'm lazy. I couldn't find a convenient chart to average that went further back than Wikipedia's. But if you'd like to see more info, I spent some more time digging and found a chart of the national debt back to 1951, a graph of government spending, and a chart of GDP change.

Also, here is a list of the US unemployment rate month-by-month.

Where are you getting your unemployment numbers from? Clinton started with high unemployment and ended with the lowest unemployment. Growth was consistent. Compare that with Bush where there was a clear increase in unemployment when he took office and even now hasn't recovered.

I won't make you take my word for it though. Link here

All of this also coincides with salary decreases which are only now starting to recover although when adjusted for the fact that the dollar is worth 30% less now than it was four years ago and reality doesn't seem to reflect your statements. Can you please support it in some way? Carter and Reagan years were definitely not the era of responsible spending but Clinton left office with a balanced budget with a projected surplus so it is hard for anyone to take your argument seriously off hand.

Please enlighten me as I'm clearly missing some key information.

Average unemployment during the Bush administration is lower (better) than average unemployment during the Clinton administration.

Source data: http://www.miseryindex.us/urbymonth.asp

The link you cite is again bogus as this reflects the cost to employers rather than salary, which is the original poster's issue.

Mean computer programmer salary:
$67,400 in May 2005
$69,500 in May 2006

This is an annual increase of 3.11%, which is lower than inflation of 3.39% in 2005 and 3.24% in 2006. So in some meaningless sense wages did rise, but in the meaningful sense of buying anything, wages went down.

You still have not addressed my question regarding the relevance of rising wages to the visa.

That said, I agree with the sentiment of your original comment.

The savings rate now is -0.5% and it was 10% in the 70s,

It had to be with inflation running at 12% and banks paying higher even rates it was the only way to stay above water. Do I need to remind your that the misery index reached historical heights during the Carter years? The low savings rate is not Mr. Bush's fault. He lowered tax rates on dividends that make it more worthwhile to save and invest. Also, remember that the savings rate doesn't reflect the large run up in equity most people have seen on their homes. To argue that your material standard of living was higher in the 70's is absurd.

high growth and high opportunity for the upper crust of society, the middle class and lower class don't have either.

Tell 12 million Mexican illegal aliens that America is a bad place to be if you are poor but want to work.

My dad used to be able to provide enough money (in a unionized blue collar factory job) to enable my mother to be a stay-at-home mum, me to go to university and saving a little bit, nowadays this would require probably 3 full time jobs at the salary rates we have now.

The unions provided leverage when their wasn't an excess of labor around the world. There is now no one can change it. You also probably had 1 car, 1 phone, and an electric bill. That's it. No other choices. No credit cards. And your parents had priorities. Today you are bombarded by options. The fact that most people choose to spend like drunken sailors drives their need to work. It is not easy to resist forces of consumerism in the US. But you can't blame President Bush for America's lack of restraint.