Congressional Comparison

Take a look at the chart below - it compares Congressional Democrats from 1974-1994 against Congressional Republicans from 1994-2006 and against Congressional Democrats from 2007 to present day as a trend over the months those parties had control of Congress, and therefore control of the national budgets.

(click graph to enlarge)

Note that 1974 was an arbitrary starting point at Gerald Ford's inauguration.

You tell me what it tells you. 

Congressional job approval is about more than the economy. After all, people tend to think (incorrectly) of that as the responsibility of the President.  Other things like trustworthiness are equally important factors in Congressional job approval.

But in this cycle if you compare Bush's supposedly "jobless recovery" with the employment results under the current Congress, you can see why there might be some correlation to a possible changing of the Speaker after this November. Those trend lines offer a stark contrast in outcomes - both in the Clinton years and post 9-11, Republicans outperformed the previous Democrat hegemony. And seemingly everyone has outperformed the current Congress so far.