Political Parties (For GOV Project)

What are political parties and what are the two main political parties in the United States?

Political Party:
A Political party is a group of people with common views about political beliefs that come together to work with one another to promote and put those common beliefs into actions. In the United States, political parties often promote their members and give them government official positions to get them to do things with the interest of their political parties. Examples of those government official positions are Senators (work in the senate), Representative for the House of Representative, and even the President.

Two main political parties in the United States.
The two main political parties in the United States are the Democratic and the Republican Parties. Even though there are different political ideology in the Democratic Parties, the people in the Democratic Party generally believe the government should play a greater role in the insurance of its people's welfare. What that mean is there should be more regulation on company, higher taxes on big corporate and programs that work for the middle and working class. This is the same for the Republican Party. Inside the Republican Party, there are also different group with different political ideology, but generally, they believe in the old way and smaller government. They believe that there should be less government regulation for companies/corporates, lower taxes and they don't often promote social changes like gay marriage and abortion.

With the two main parties co-exist in the United States, which one best shape the economy?
When looking at the employment rate between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party from the year 2000 to 2016, the Democratic Party undoubtedly proved to the the party that best shape the economy.

President George W. Bush, a member of the Republican Party, served as president from 2001 to 2009. During his term, millions of jobs were lost and not much were gained. For example, in 2007, there were 1,147,000 new jobs but than in the last 2 years of his presidency (2008-2009), the amount of jobs decreased by 8,635,000. This large decrease in jobs lost out numbered the number of jobs gained. But when compare this number to the one in Obama's presidency from 2009 to 2017, the amount new jobs consistently increase each year. The consistent increase of jobs greatly improved the economy because with more/new  jobs open up for people, they will have more opportunity to work and earn money and use that money to buy food, clothing and other items. And this is important because "consumer spending is the single most important driving force of the U.S. economy... if everyone stopped spending. Businesses would eventually go bankrupt and lay off workers. The government would then have no one to tax." (Amadeo, 2018) So with people now able to work and earn money, they are now able to use that money and spend it on the supply that they need and keep the economy running. Because of the Republican Party's inability to provide more jobs for the American people as shown the in the presidency term of George W. Bush, the Republican Party is sure isn't the party that is going to provide the American people what we need to earn money and keep America's economy going toward the positive direction. But on the other hand, the Democratic Party consistently open up more jobs for the people, which in term provide them the opportunity to work and earn money which they can spend on goods from businesses, and this will then help the economy going forward. Because of this, the democratic is the one that will better shape the economy.

Another example that further prove the democratic party better shape the economy is the rise in GDP.

                                                These data are used to from the bar graphs.
GDP stand for gross domestic product. "For the United States, GDP usually means the dollar-amount value of all purchased goods and services over the course of one year." (Smith, 2018) So If you buy a roast chicken for $10, GDP increases by $10.

In the graph above, the Democratic Party shows a really high GDP of 3.5.  This number is from adding all of the GDP from the years of the Presidents from the Democratic Party together and find its average. Because the number is really high, it proved that during the years of the Democratic Party winning the presidential elections, there must be a really high number of jobs available for the people. I said this because people earn money from working and they used that money on products. Every amount of those money from big to small are then added to the GDP. And by buying and spending their money, they are ultimately helping the U.S's economy by keeping the cycle of the producer and the consumer going.

But in the years of the Republican Party winning the presidential elections, their average GDP is 1.15 less than that of the Democratic Party. This must mean that during their presidential terms, they didn't open up as many jobs as the Democratic Party did. And because they didn't open up enough jobs for the people, the people therefore earned less money and have less money available to spend on products. This lower number in GDP ultimately lower the U.S's income.

The table represent a neutral data because they are taken from 6 Republican Presidents and 6 Democratic Presidents. So the same number of president is represented on both side.


                                                                   Cited Sources:

Smith, Lisa. “Does High GDP Mean Economic Prosperity?” Investopedia, Investopedia, 31 May 2018, www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/genuine-progress-indicator-gpi.asp.

“Believe It or Not! Democratic Presidents Manage the Economy Better Than Republicans.” Presidential Data 2016, presidentialdata.org/.