The publisher's description is what led me to read this book: "Politicians and the media spend a lot of time telling Americans how the presidents and their administrations are performing, but this analysis always skews along party lines. In Presimetrics, Kimel and Kanell take a fresh look at modern politics by gathering data from numerous government sources in order to compare and rank presidential performance on critical issues, from employment and health care to taxes and family values. The results frequently defy expectations." I'm delighted to say the book fulfills its billing.

Published in 2010, the analysis covers the administrations of Eisenhower to George W. Bush, with brief inclusions of earlier presidents where there is sufficient data. It takes into account all sorts of possible arguments about what the results show and recalculates the results to take those points into account. For instance, tables might show what occurred during a President's tenure, and then what occurred during it without counting the first year. And yes, the results do defy expectations and party propaganda. It appears things aren't quite as bad when the other guys are in control as might be advertised (and not quite as good when one's own party is in power).

Topics include: Real GDP (gross domestic product) per Capita; Fiscal Responsibility; Debt (What the Real GDP Leave Out); Employment; Income and Wealth; Republican Issues; Taxes; Democratic Issues; Health Care; Crime; The Public Mood; Family Values; Investing in the Future (infrastructure). A conclusion brings it all together and gives an overall ranking of the presidents of the last 60 years based on how they scored in each of the topics mentioned above.

Congress is briefly examined, with the interesting result that the economy usually does OK if one party holds both houses, but with mixed control of the House and Senate, not so much.

There is also an eye-opening appendix on the budget of the Executive Office of the President, which includes all those "supplemental appropriations". From 1962-2000, the annualized spending by the EOP as a % of total federal spending ranged from -4% (Reagan) to +4% (Bush Sr. and Nixon/Ford), with the Democrats ranging in between. Under GW it was 31%.

The authors work in economics and statistics. There is also an associated blog: http://www.presimetrics.com/blog/

Humor, readable explanations, and numerous charts make this accessible and enjoyable to the general reader. For those wishing to judge the sources for themselves, there is a long section of annotated footnotes, and there is a detailed index. ( )