The Republican War on the American People: Stastical Evidence

[elfs]

Michael Tomasky brings us this important statistical point. Add up all of the votes made by each Democrat in the House and Senate during the George W. Bush years, and all of the votes made by each Republican during the Barack Obama years, and something important jumps out at you:

Average Democratic Senate support for Bush	45.5 percent.
Average Democratic House support for Bush	36.8 percent.
Average combined Democratic support for Bush	41.1 percent.
Average Republican Senate support for Obama	8.8 percent.
Average Republican House support for Obama	2.7 percent.
Average combined Republican support for Obama	5.75 percent.

For the eight years that George W. Bush was president, the Democrats were a loyal opposition: some disagreed, some agreed, but all of them voted their conscience and were usually working in the best interests of their constituency and the American People.

On the other hand, the Republicans have shown no interest in being a loyal opposition, only a destructive one. They have not voted in the best interests of their constituency and the American People.

Brad Delong highlights that the stastics averages are incorrect; they should be weighted to account for the numbers of Senators vs. House members. By that number, Democratic support for Bush's initiatives was 39%; Republican support for Obama's, only 4%. Commenter "Cawley" points out that both Obama and Bush have put forward proposals that were far more slanted toward Republican goals than Democratic goals.

Only if "The Republican Party Constituency" is "The wealthy 1%" can we say the Republican Party is doing great. As long as nothing is done, as long as no regulatory agencies can get the funding and authority necessary to limit the creeping oligarchism, their servicing their constituency.

Comments

[wendor.livejournal.com]

Actually, if you read Michael Tomasky's article he points out that his numbers are not scientific at all, are completely based on his arbitrary choic eof 4 bills from each period of time, and that the "Democrat support for Bush" average is completely skewed by his inclusion of "No Child Left Behind" which had extremely unusual bipartisan support. Going for a more "apples to apples" comparison - say comparing bipartisan support he lists for "First Bush Tax Cut" to "The Stimulus" you find the numbers are much closer.

More importantly though I have to ask for the logic behind the step you made from "average opposition party support for major proposal by president" to "voted in the best interests of their constituency and the American People".

Are you implying that any major proposal by a sitting president is automatically in the best interests of the American People? ...that opposition to a sitting president's agenda is automatically not?

There is such a thing as a bad implementation of a good idea....and I think that three of the four cited examples of Obama administration proposals fall under that heading. Opposing the "bad implementation" does not equal opposition to the "good idea".

[urox.livejournal.com]

Not to mention my personal opinion that bipartisan support during Bush years was often Democrats making "fear based" decisions.

I think there's a "ti" missing in your entry title. :)

Oh, c'mon

[ideaphile.livejournal.com]

This is nonsense in both directions-- the data are nonsense because of sampling bias, and the conclusion is nonsense because even if the data were representative, they say nothing about which side is responsible for the lack of agreement.

Maybe the Republicans are obstructing mainstream proposals. Maybe Obama's proposals are far outside the mainstream. No one can say from these data.

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