Are you a Republican or a Democrat?

Here are some interesting statistics from Slate (2002) :

Democratic presidents average an annual 12.7% return for the S&P 500.

Republicans averaged only 8% annually for the S&P 500.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was even better for the Dems. Democrats 13.4% Republicans 8.1%

How about Congress and the S&P 500?

The Senate (when controlled by either party) : Democrats 10.5% Republicans: 9.4%
The House : Democrats 10.9% vs. Republicans 8.1%

How about GDP growth rates? Democratic presidents averaged 5.4% Republicans 1.6%

How about spending?

Here's a graph of the U.S. budget since 1961.
It looks like Nixon and Ford really got the debt snowball rolling. Reagan really took it to new depths. That bastard!

This may surprise you. In 2007 the U.S. government had to pay $243.7 billion in interest payments on debt. Why so much interest? Because the U.S. national debt is over $9 trillion. At least they got a good non-subprime rate of only 2.7%

Our debt runs around 36% of GDP which places the U.S. 65th among all countries. This is right below Cuba's (64th) 37%. lol

How does this affect me?

Well, like most Americans, my money is in stocks. =)
Also, since I am an American, my share of U.S. government debt is $30,694.83
(That's $9 trillion divided among 300 million Americans. What the hell?)

Am I a Republican or a Democrat?

I'm neither, but you can probably guess how a stock investor would vote.