Worst recession since. . . Carter

But they don't say it that way, do they? Sometimes you hear, twenty-six years, or even "the 1930s." FDR is never blamed for the Great Depression even though it dragged out another 10 years after he took office. Presidents Obama and Reagan both inherited a recession. Reagan's was much worse because he also got inflation in the deal.

"At the end of World War II, from 1945 to 1946, there was a very sharp drop in U.S. output (12.1 percent) as the war economy began its transition to a civilian economy. The deepest and longest-lasting recession the United States has experienced since then began in 1980, when Jimmy Carter was president (the gross domestic product dropped 9.6 percent in the second quarter of that year) and did not end until fourth-quarter 1982, almost two years into the Reagan presidency. There were positive quarters during this almost three-year period, resulting in what is known as a double-dip recession, but GDP did not return to the 1979 level until well into 2003. Unemployment peaked at 10.6 percent in the fall of 1982.

As can be seen in the accompanying chart, both President Reagan and President Obama inherited an economy suffering from a year of no growth, along with rising unemployment. (The numbers are almost identical.) But Mr. Reagan faced a far direr situation in that inflation was in the double digits and the prime interest rate was at 20 percent. In contrast, Mr. Obama inherited an economy in which inflation was falling (in fact, inflation has been close to zero for this year) and interest rates were very low.

A situation in which the number of jobs available is falling is bad enough, but if inflation is also destroying purchasing power, the misery is compounded. In the 1960s, economist Arthur M. Okun created the Misery Index by adding the unemployment rate to the inflation rate. In the 1976 presidential race, Jimmy Carter frequently attacked President Ford for allowing the Misery Index to reach 13.57, even though it was lower when Mr. Ford left office than what he had inherited from the Nixon years. Ironically, four years later, when President Carter was running against Ronald Reagan, the Misery Index reached a record high of 21.98. Mr. Carter had no defense and lost the election. The Misery Index dropped by more than 10 points during the Reagan presidency, the single largest improvement during any president's tenure in the last half-century." Richard W. Rahn, Cato Institute

However, if you are the one unemployed, it's 100% not 10%, and if your retirement funds have been decimated, a 10,000 Dow will take a lot of years to make up what you've lost. And whether or not you voted for the current president, in your heart you know that raising taxes is not the way to grow the economy because it's never worked before. And if you know that, and still support him, then you really don't care that people are suffering.