It has been an ongoing claim from conservatives...

**clocker** · 09-13-2009, 06:11 PM

...that Americans fare better under their rule.

Recent Census Bureau reports show that quite the opposite is true.
(Article here.)

A short (but damning) summation of the data...

So the summary page on the economic experience of average Americans under the past two presidents would look like this:
Under Clinton, the median income increased 14 per cent. Under Bush it declined 4.2 per cent.

Under Clinton the total number of Americans in poverty declined 16.9 per cent; under Bush it increased 26.1 per cent.

Under Clinton the number of children in poverty declined 24.2 per cent; under Bush it increased by 21.4 per cent.

Under Clinton, the number of Americans without health insurance, remained essentially even (down six-tenths of one per cent); under Bush it increased by 20.6 per cent.

One can't deny that the right has been stunningly successful convincing people to vote against their own best interests, a trend that was finally broken again this past election and hopefully to continue.

**Skiz** · 09-13-2009, 10:02 PM

I thought one of the responses to that article summed up it's biases rather well.

What an absolute fucking joke.

Median income excludes a significant portion of compensation, including health care benefits. Comparison of the welfare of families that ignore a significant percentage of the compensation they receive are spurious and misleading. Intentionally misleading, I might add, since this is well-trod ground.

The rest is just the worst sort of cherry picking. If one were to take, say, the 1998 statistics and compare them to, say, the 2006 statistics, we'd say that the Bush record is stronger than the Clinton record. Check the record--did Brownstein write an article in 2007 saying that the Bush record was better than the Clinton record? Why not? The evidence was there to see!

Why did Brownstein get so dumb in the intervening years?

**clocker** · 09-13-2009, 11:10 PM

How interesting that your response is a quote from someone who managed to completely miss the point.
Well done.

You (and the original respondent) assert that the median income stat doesn't include a "significant percentage of compensation" in the form of health care benefits and completely ignore the following stat that states that under Bush the percentage of people who LOST this supposedly significant chunk of income rose by 20.6%.

You lose both ways.

Of course, since the data paints your belief system in a rather pitiful light, it must be biased.
Rather typical of the current mindset of the Right that plain fact is ignored in favor of ranting and willful misstatement of truth.
Got anything else?

**j2k4** · 09-15-2009, 08:38 PM

Yes, of course - the Dems own the census bureau, so they definitely have no bias, and we all know statistics/numbers defy manipulation.

I must give them credit for dissociating themselves from ACORN, but.

**clocker** · 09-15-2009, 09:58 PM

The "Dems own the census bureau"?
Oh, that's rich.

So, you assert that this is not true, just another attempt to sully the fine reputation of the conservatives, eh?
I suppose that because of this biased "ownership" you, like Michelle Bachman, think that you shouldn't participate in the census.

**j2k4** · 09-15-2009, 10:19 PM

Barack thinks he "owns" the census bureau, yes.

You apparently have forgotten the promise of Obama early on to utilize ACORN's expertise in assembling the next census...