Republicans are bad with money part 2

Ok, so yesterday I used unemployment rates and the budget deficit as examples of how bad Republicans have been with money during the presidency. Although I'm sure I could find more examples I think the examples I've used and will use here cover important bases of money matters:

1) Unemployment rates - represent economic effect on the electorate. availability of jobs has direct effects on people
2) Budget deficit - how good the government/president is at budgeting, using only money that we have.
3) GDP growth - overall health of the economy. The president may not always have an extremely direct effect on the economy but Washington polices do effect economic health. So let's see if there are patterns here

President Party %GDP growth %GDP growth per year
FDR Dem 180.64 15.08
LBJ Dem 28.89 5.78
JFK Dem 13.28 4.43
Clinton Dem 33.81 4.23
Reagan Rep 30.63 3.83
Carter Dem 13.67 3.42
Eisenhower Rep 25.83 3.23
Nixon Rep 17.88 2.98
Ford Rep 5.46 2.73
Bush 2 Rep 17.82 2.55
Bush 1 Rep 8.81 2.20
Truman Dem 10.06 1.26
Hoover Rep -25.60 -6.40

What can we learn from this chart? The Depression was really bad (it killed growth during Hoover and the recovery rocketed FDR to the top of our list). What else? Democrats are much better for growth, generally except Truman, and Reagan is still pretty good for a Republican.

So what does it all mean other than Republican presidents are bad for out country economically? I don't know. Maybe that blanket tax cuts are pandering and not a viable economic plan? Maybe along with assuming Republicans are "tough on crime" we can take it for granted that Republicans are bad for the economy.

Now let us all look at McCain's financial plan and laugh