Are you better off today than you were four years ago? Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign zinger is back in 2012.

Let’s see. Four years ago ... four years ago. That was September 2008. Oh yes, I remember it well.

It was a time of white-knuckled panic that a new Great Depression was upon us. The banks were teetering, then insurance companies, then other big corporate names – notably General Motors. Stock prices were plunging along with house values. But even before that craziness started, the federal budget was snowing blizzard-condition deficits – the inevitable pileup from reckless tax cuts and accelerated spending.