You frequently hear people debate the Obama recovery against the Reagan recovery, but it's pretty dicey.

The times were totally different (and the recessions were very different) so you're left with just a lot of speculation and counterfactuals and so forth.

But here's an interesting apples to apples approach.

The below chart was made by Reuters' Scotty Barber, and it shows economic growth in the US, the UK, and Europe.

Now the first thing to note is that the US has recovered WAY better than either the Eurozone or the UK. So if you think Obama has been a disaster, you might first acknowledge that the US has performed better than all its major Western peers.

But beyond that, check out the UK line. The UK was recovering on a fine trajectory right up until early 2010, at which point UK growth hit a brick wall.

What happened in 2010? That's when conservative David Cameron came to power with an agenda of reigning in the debt. Sound familiar?

Basically we have a life test of a country that wants to do what conservatives in the US want to do: reduce national debt.

Doing so is a growth disaster.