dazzleman
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Posts: 13,777
Political Matrix
E: 1.88, S: 1.59
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« on: September 08, 2004, 08:43:13 PM » |
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I am better off financially than I was four years ago, if you look at my income and assets.
The reality is that I was pretty well off then, and I'm pretty well off now.
Reagan used the "are you better off now than you were four years ago" in his 1980 debate with President Carter, not as a measure of the success of his own administration.
Carter had created the "misery index" in 1976 which was the inflation and unemployement rate added together, and used it against President Ford. By 1980, the misery index under Carter was far higher than it ever was under Ford, and most people felt they were worse off than they had been four years before. This gave Reagan his opening to ask this question at the end of his 1980 debate with Carter.
In 1984, most felt they were better off than they were four years earlier, and Reagan got a lot of political credit for it. But I don't think he ASKED people that question directly in 1984; I think his campaign simply put out the indicators to prove how much better off the country was under his policies.
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