A Tale of Two Election Year Recoveries

The late President Ronald Reagan looms large over this year’s Presidential election. GOP candidates invoke him as the visionary who revived a flattened economy with lower taxes, easier regulations, and smaller government. That’s what the economy needs today to bring back the growth of the 1980s, say his acolytes. Yet the Republican argument leaves out one important factor: President Barack Obama’s recession is a lot more complicated than the one Reagan tussled with in 1981.

Superficially, their predicaments are similar. Both presided over economic downturns considered to be the worst since the Great Depression. They lost congressional support in midterm elections and were presiding over economic recoveries as they geared up for reelection campaigns.