Marta Cook over at Faithful Democrats just did a great post on the differences between how American families fared during the Clinton and Bush years.

She based her post on a report by Third Way (my favorite of the progressive think tanks).  It’s well worth the time to read the entire post (and report, for that matter), but here are a few of the highlights from Marta’s post:

If income growth into the Bush years had kept up with the overall rate of growth during the Clinton years, the average American family would have pocketed $58,945 more from 2000 to 2008.

Between 1992 and 2008, gas prices have nearly tripled in real dollars. Third Way concludes, “The typical household will have spent $5,069 more for gas over the past eight years than it did from 1993 to 2000-or enough to pay nearly one year’s tuition at a public university“.

If the economy had kept up the same rate of growth during the Bush years as it did the Clinton years, America’s economy would be larger, to the tune of $1.017 trillion. In addition, between 2000 and 2006, the number of uninsured Americans increased by 8.56 million.

To be fair, there are always other factors than the President that affect these things, but imagine how different our world would be if only a few hundred little old ladies in FL had not voted for Buchanan…