It’s Official - Obama Better President Than Reagan
Posted: Monday, July 05, 2010
by e
Dhammabucha Rocksprings Meditation
For the fifth time since its inception in 1982, the Siena College Research Institute's (SRI) Survey of U.S. Presidents finds that experts rank Franklin D. Roosevelt as the top all time chief executive. The 238 participating presidential scholars round out the top five in order with Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
Obama has accomplished much in his first couple of years. He passed a comprehensive health care bill that no other president was capable of putting together. He also won a Noble Prize, and is about to put together a comprehensive financial reform, again, something that has not been accomplished by other administrations and addresses the leading cause of the great recession. He is also the first Black president, and despite prejudices, racism, unfair and biased criticisms, has kept a cool head and has made great progress.
The question is; why does Ronald Reagan, arguably the "Jesus Christ" of the conservatives, rank behind Obama? I would argue that the real Ronald Reagan is just surfacing after all these years, and he didn't walk on water! Ronald Reagan, it turns out, was all for the wealthy and big business, while Obama is for you and I, the little people.
The facts of Reagan's presidency are revealing many things; for example, out of control spending in the form of tax cuts for the wealthy and unreal amounts of tax dollars squandered on the military industrial complex, especially in his home state of California in a race with Russia as to who would go broke first. Russia won. - Maybe. We are now broke ourselves, all a result of Reagan's legacy. Under Reagan, we lost sight of enlightened capitalism.
"The original concept of capitalism is that investors and entrepreneurs are allowed to pursue profits because that's good for everyone. Private ownership and free-market competition drive the creation of wealth, and raise the standard of living. So profit is a means to an end. But under Reagan, we lost sight of this original purpose, profit became the end in itself. This led to the concentration of wealth and slow decline in the standard of living for most people (as that concentrated wealth went overseas for additional profits, and into Wall Street gambling. a trend that continues to this day, and a trend that is the base cause of the coming depression).
"Reagan deregulated many industries, in effect destroying competition and creating oligopolies. For example, his deregulation of airlines resulted in every single airline in the US going bankrupt except two. His deregulation of broadcasting resulted in the entire industry being dominated by a few enormously powerful players, like Disney and Clear Channel.
"Under Reagan, money became more powerful in politics than ever before. So powerful that today we don't really have elections, we have auctions. The candidate who spends more money wins about 98% of the time. This has made it easier for powerful corporations to 'buy' politicians.
"The concentration of wealth created a whole new class of millionaires, but for each new millionaire there were several hundred new homeless. The poor were demonized and Republican politicians and their mouthpieces in the media directed the public's anger at them for being a drag on the economy, while actually, all along, it was the rich who were really ripping us off. The city of Los Angeles installed a fingerprint system to guard against welfare fraud. The system cost $30 million, and it caught -one- welfare cheat. Meanwhile for the first time in US history corporate fraud and white collar crime cost us more than street crime, did more damage, and even arguably resulted in more deaths."
And by the way, since the early 1980s and Reagan's tax breaks for the wealthy, the bottom 20% of the work force have only seen their after tax income go up a mere 16%, while the top wealthy 1% have seen their after tax incomes rise 281%. Hard to believe, but factual.
"Reagan's deregulation of the savings and loan industry ended in a debacle that cost Americans $500 billion. I wonder how many Americans realize that the current banking debacle based on sub prime mortgages is the THIRD huge financial services disaster in as many decades caused by imprudent Republican deregulation.
"Reagan also began (or accelerated) the export of American manufacturing overseas. In fact the US govt. actually subsidizes corporations to move jobs overseas, making investors richer and working people poorer. What do you do when you want to screw only the working people of your nation with the largest tax increase in history and hand those trillions of dollars to your wealthy campaign contributors, yet not have anybody realize you've done it?
"If you're Ronald Reagan, you call in Alan Greenspan. Through the "golden years of the American middle class" - the 1940s through 1982 - the top income tax rate for the hyper-rich had been between 90 and 70 percent. Ronald Reagan wanted to cut that rate dramatically, to help out his political patrons. He did this with a massive tax cut in the summer of 1981.
"The only problem was that when Reagan took his meat axe to our tax code, he produced mind-boggling budget deficits. Voodoo economics didn't work out as planned, and even after borrowing so much money that this year we'll pay over $100 billion just in interest on the money Reagan borrowed to make the economy look good in the 1980s, Reagan couldn't come up with the revenues he needed to run the government. Coincidentally, the actuaries at the Social Security Administration were beginning to get worried about the Baby Boomer generation, who would begin retiring in big numbers in fifty years or so. They were a "rabbit going through the python" bulge that would require a few trillion more dollars than Social Security could easily collect during the same 20 year or so period of their retirement.
"We needed, the actuaries said, to tax more heavily those very persons who would eventually retire, so instead of using current workers' money to pay for the Boomer's Social Security payments in 2020, the Boomers themselves would have pre-paid for their own retirement. Reagan got Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Alan Greenspan together to form a commission on Social Security reform, along with a few other politicians and economists, and they recommend a near-doubling of the Social Security tax on the then-working Boomers.
"That tax created - for the first time in history - a giant savings account that Social Security could use to pay for the Boomers' retirement. This was a huge change. Prior to this, Social Security had always paid for today's retirees with income from today's workers (it still is today). The Boomers were the first generation that would pay Social Security taxes both to fund current retirees and save up enough money to pay for their own retirement.
"And, after the Boomers were all retired and the savings account - called the "Social Security Trust Fund" - was all spent, the rabbit would have finished its journey through the python and Social Security could go back to a "pay as you go" taxing system. Thus, within the period of a few short years, Reagan dramatically dropped the income tax on America's most wealthy by more than half, and roughly doubled the Social Security tax on people earning $30,000 or less. It was, simultaneously, the largest income tax cut in America's history (almost entirely for the very wealthy), and the most massive tax increase in the history of the nation (which entirely hit working-class people).
"But Reagan still had a problem. His tax cuts for the wealthy - even when moderated by subsequent tax increases - weren't generating enough money to invest properly in America's infrastructure, schools, police and fire departments, and military. The country was facing bankruptcy. No problem, suggested Greenspan. Just borrow the Boomer's savings account - the money in the Social Security Trust Fund - and, because you're borrowing "government money" to fund "government expenditures," you don't have to list it as part of the deficit. Much of the deficit will magically seem to disappear, and nobody will know what you did for another 50 years when the Boomers begin to retire 2015. Reagan jumped at the opportunity. As did George H. W. Bush. As did Bill Clinton (although Al Gore argued strongly that Social Security funds should not be raided, but, instead, put in a "lock box"). And so did George W. Bush.
"The result is that all that money - trillions of dollars - that has been taxed out of working Boomers (the ceiling has risen from the tax being on your first $30,000 of income to the first $90,000 today) has been borrowed and spent. What are left behind are a special form of IOUs - an unique form of Treasury debt instruments similar (but not identical) to those the government issues to borrow money from China today to fund George W. Bush's most recent tax cuts for billionaires (George Junior is still also "borrowing" from the Social Security Trust Fund). Former Bush Junior Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill recounts how Dick Cheney famously said, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." Cheney was either ignorant or being disingenuous - it would be more accurate to say, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter if you rip off the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for them, and don't report that borrowing from the Boomers as part of the deficit."
So to wrap things up, congratulations Barack Obama, who if he remains on track may go down as one of the truly great presidents in history! I wish him the best of luck.
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Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)I was disappointed to get to the end of your article, E.! I've read so much that is anti-Obama and pro-Republican, but it all glosses over the reality, it's very frustrating.I think Barack Obama is an exceptional man, and that those Americans who voted for him and want the change he was and is advocating, and bringing about, are exceptional people. This is the America that I have always looked up to.Thank you so much for speaking out. I think many feel as you do but remain silent.Best.....e
Had Obama been elected instead of Ronald Reagan he may have actually been able to do some good. Too much water over the fall now for him or anybody else to get much done now. Big IF, the supreme court reverses the corporate financed government policy, maybe common people stand a chance in the future, if not, ?.
The Obama health care reform, reformed nothing. More people on the insurance rolls, it's mandatory to purchase now! You can't lose insurance for health problems, but they can charge you so much, you'll wish you could opt out. So more have it, but few can afford to use what they have with deductibles,co-pays, and co-insurance. Business got no relief, and now are afraid to hire more people because of insurance rates, and they don't even think about hiring older employees because they cost more to put on. Why do you think insurance stocks went up after the reform?
If you consider pulling more wool over more people's eyes than any other president in the history of the country, recruiting God to make more people think that they are better off for it, then Reagan is by far the winner, and his legacy lives on in churches all across this country today. Go to church and mention Obama, and I'd bet you'd be on that burning cross in the morning.
Besides, Reagan did what he was elected to do. He made more wealthy people, wealthier than they could have ever imagined possible, and made a large majority of the country happy he did, because he convinced them they would be one of those wealthy people one of these days. Laugh or cry?
You're right, they're wrong, but good luck convincing enough people, to stop the change back to the same old crap this coming election.Thanks David, it's hard to stop a heavy train when it's heading for a train wreck, which America and Europe are. With brakes applied and sparks flying, it continues down the same road. My upcoming articles "It's Gonna Get Ugly" and "After Armageddon" addresses some of you points.
ERR,Where have you been these last few years? In four pages you hosed away all the conservative Republican B.S., with a high powered shot of the truth. Beautifully done. I can see that you are as angry as I am at the present state of affairs. I've been trying to figure out how to get out the word about Obama's success. The Tea Party doesn't want to hear the truth and the Democrats don't have the talk radio load mouths that the conservatives have(FOX News, etc.)If I can help you figure a strategy, just e-mail me. I am at the computer most of the day. Thanx again for your thoughtful article.Bob BregmanThanks Robert. One way is to write blogs and articles. For example, Gregory Lewis'article about White Supremacist AZ law is reportedly being widely cited on the 'net. Another way is to write a few paragraphs about right wing and fundamentalist Christian hatred and stupidity and cut and paste it into as many "comment" areas that you can that appear after articles. Republicans hire people to do this pretending it is spontaneous reactions when really it is just a part of the wealthy's and big business' strategy to overwhelm the poor and middle class by using their money to create influence. Everyone has to fight back as hard as they can, otherwise silence will be regarded as condonement..
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