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Re: Has Obama Buried Reagan?
he Democratic idea bank of Robert & Robert says it's safe to unload on Ronald Reagan.
Robert Reich: "It is the boldest budget we have seen since the Reagan administration, and drives a nail in the coffin of Reaganomics. We can basically say goodbye to the philosophy espoused by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher."
[Wonder Land] Corbis
President Ronald Reagan compares Republican and Democratic economic policies on taxes and spending at the White House.
Robert Shrum: "Obama is not only unwinding Reagan's policies, he is offering a Rooseveltian paradigm that justifies government pragmatically."
Hmmm. Let us consider an alternative universe.
The stock market has been in a free-fall (with a bounce off a ledge yesterday), dismantling the saved wealth of millions of individual Americans who must feel they are living through the exploding rubble of some Hollywood disaster movie.
In reaction, Republicans, true to form, set sail for a deserted island to ponder a dispute between Rush Limbaugh and Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. At issue: Who's captain of the GOP Titanic.
Americans are ready for a message of economic growth, but who will deliver it?
Someone said, "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste." Why are the Republicans wasting it?
If the Democrats are willing to bet the entire U.S. economy on a 1931 theory known as the Keynesian multiplier, surely Republicans can excavate and relearn the core idea handed down to them by Ronald Reagan. That idea was known as economic growth.
Freed to choose between these two competing ideas, I'm guessing many voters would go for growth. All that's needed is just one Republican who can explain this idea halfway as well as Ronald Reagan.
Arguably at no time in their lives have more Americans been this sharply focused on the economy. They think and talk about nothing else. The Republicans have been handed on a tarnished silver platter the chance to offer the American people an alternative vision of how their economy works -- and grows.
They should take political ownership of the 75% of the U.S. economy that the Democrats have abandoned -- the private economy.
Podcast
Listen to Daniel Henninger's Wonder Land column, now available in audio format.
Over the past four decades and the decline of private-sector industrial unions, professional Democrats -- politicians, intellectuals like Robert & Robert, campaign professionals, unions and satellite groups -- have severed their emotional and intellectual connection with private production.
Today, frontline Democrats see the private sector as doing two things: It produces tax revenue for $3.9 trillion federal budgets, and it shafts workers. The private sector in the Democratic worldview is necessary but nasty. Their leadership gives the impression of not having the simplest understanding of how an employer's life unfolds day to day.
This week's NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds President Obama with a 60% approval. That's high alright, as in high anxiety: 44% say the nation is "off on the wrong track," 41% see it headed in the right direction, and 15% of respondents are in a gray fog.
I have a poll question: Has anyone in America had a single upbeat conversation about anything the past three weeks?
Beyond the stock market, there is a reason why, despite much goodwill toward his presidency, the Obama response to the faltering economy has left many feeling undone. There isn't much in his plan to stir the national soul. It's about "sacrifice" now so that we can live for a future of small electric cars and windmills. This may move the Democratic Party's faith communities, but it cannot revive a great nation. If the Democrats want to embrace market failure as a basis for their ideology, let them have it. As politics, it's a downer.
What Ronald Reagan knew and they don't is that what moves a nation is the vital, teeming life of the private economy -- work, ideas, innovation, the excitement of production, getting bigger. Growth. In the past this world was depicted as blast furnaces and factory chimneys. Today the economy's sinews are harder to see, but they exist in tens of thousands of small-cap, mid-cap and fat-cap companies.
The Republicans -- Romney, Huckabee, Jindal, Pawlenty, Sanford, Newt, Sarah and several hundred 2010 congressional candidates -- must rediscover a way to talk about the living world of the real economy. Their vocabulary now consists mainly of policy-wonk spinach -- "fiscal responsibility," "reduce the debt," and even "tax cuts." True but insufficient.
What Rush Limbaugh was trying to tell that conservative audience in so many words was, Don't be embarrassed. Don't be embarrassed about embracing the world of free markets, competition, entrepreneurship and profit. If you don't know how to talk about it, reread the apostles and evangelists of private economic growth -- Ronald Reagan's "A Life in Letters," Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose," Henry Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson."
Politics, it has been recently demonstrated, is about ideas and language. The conservative movement is not at a loss for proven ideas, and in the U.S. the most powerful of these -- running in an upward line since the Industrial Revolution -- is the idea of private economic growth. The Democrats don't want the private economy anymore and conservatives have forgotten how to talk about it. Democrats are betting their opponents will forget even where Ronald Reagan is buried. They should be so lucky.
Write to henninger@wsj.com
Re: Has Obama Buried Reagan?
How has a president who hasn't did anything but sign the biggest spending bill in the history of the universe "bury Reagan"?
When Obama learns how to create a thriving economy, THEN we'll consider which presidents he may bury.
Its funny how they try and pin this neo con bullshit on Reagan. There were certain elements of those neo cons in Reagan's administration, but they didn't hijack the party until GWB became president. The democrats rubber stamped anything he wanted(including the times Obama had the nerve to vote), so anything these clowns rant against, they themselves supported in the first place.
He's been president six weeks and liberals are already saying he's burying former presidents? HAHAHAHAHAHA!!
He'll be lucky if he can bury Hoover.....
Re: Has Obama Buried Reagan?
Obama burying Reagan is hilarious. I couldn't believe it when I saw this. I thought you'd get a kick out of it James. 
One thing I like about this article is the message to Republicans. I really think if Republicans took sometime to educate people of my generation (the ones who don't pay attention to much history besides the past year) of exactly what Reagan did and what his ideas were, then we could start getting an economy that may be recovering within a year.
What Rush Limbaugh was trying to tell that conservative audience in so many words was, Don't be embarrassed. Don't be embarrassed about embracing the world of free markets, competition, entrepreneurship and profit. If you don't know how to talk about it, reread the apostles and evangelists of private economic growth -- Ronald Reagan's "A Life in Letters," Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose," Henry Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson."
Politics, it has been recently demonstrated, is about ideas and language. The conservative movement is not at a loss for proven ideas, and in the U.S. the most powerful of these -- running in an upward line since the Industrial Revolution -- is the idea of private economic growth. The Democrats don't want the private economy anymore and conservatives have forgotten how to talk about it. Democrats are betting their opponents will forget even where Ronald Reagan is buried. They should be so lucky.
Private economic growth. It got us out of the first depression. It helped us become the biggest economy in the world (though we aren't anymore). I really don't get how Government is going to magically fix our problems by basically ignoring private growth and just spending a ton of money.
Re: Has Obama Buried Reagan?
This articles just bizarre, and terrible I couldn't even read it but also don't get the point.
You are wrong on this though:
Private economic growth. It got us out of the first depression. It helped us become the biggest economy in the world (though we aren't anymore). I really don't get how Government is going to magically fix our problems by basically ignoring private growth and just spending a ton of money.
Unemployment was at nearly 25% during the height of the depression, and FDR had to implement The New Deal to give people jobs. Basically put the unemployed to work building parks, zoos, roads, housing projects, fixing government schools, buildings etc.. Alot of which can still be seen today. It was these government jobs that helped alot of Americans survive the Depression, not the private sector.
I'm not saying that is or isn't how to solve todays problem. However the private sector offered little assistance until after the war, basically the 50's.
Re: Has Obama Buried Reagan?
The private sector also offered help during the war, which helped get us out. I guess I should have put "helped" instead of making it a definite.
We saw massive growth through private enterprise.
The issue of sustainability is coming up, and I would have liked to see how Reagan would have handled that. Private enterprise isn't cut out to deal with sustainability in it's current form. A free market will meet demand, and if demand is for goods that are ultimately wasted, it can't meet the needs of sustainability.
Obama's right when he says that there needs to be massive changes to our country. He may just be wrong about the changes and how to get there.
Re: Has Obama Buried Reagan?
This is just an alternate argument for the death of the free market.
Obama didn't kill Reagan, if anybody killed Reagan, it was Clinton & Bush.
And they are only arguing this, because Reagan is an icon for the conservative party and it's values, and has been for the last 30 years. Democrats still eager to bury the Republican party, use this more heavy-spending socialism approach to more Democratic policies, as a way to signal a death to Reaganomics.
In reality... everything comes full circle. This is another example of the media writing history 5 seconds after it happened, just like with Bush. Let's give it awhile. For all we know, in 6 years, we might be impeaching Obama over something, and everyone will jump on board for another Republican in office.
It's just too early to call. Obama might be the best or worst president ever. No one knows. The media is already wanting to fast-forward to 2016 with all of these "good feelings".
- tejastech08
- Rep: 194
Re: Has Obama Buried Reagan?
Eh, he'll be thrown out of office in 2012 unless a miracle occurs and he adopts a smart, effective economic policy (fat chance!).
Re: Has Obama Buried Reagan?
Depends on the Republican running against him. Look at the 1996 election. Clinton could've been tossed then, but he was a great public speaker, and Dole was a poor candidate.
If Obama is given someone he can talk in circles, and take to the wood shed in a debate, it doesn't matter if it's Christ himself... Obama will get re-elected.
That's how DUMB the American public is. I like Obama, and i'm gonna give it time, but i'll be interested to see where we're at by the end of 2009. Obama is gonna have to have a great first year imo.
- tejastech08
- Rep: 194
Re: Has Obama Buried Reagan?
Depends on the Republican running against him. Look at the 1996 election. Clinton could've been tossed then, but he was a great public speaker, and Dole was a poor candidate.
If Obama is given someone he can talk in circles, and take to the wood shed in a debate, it doesn't matter if it's Christ himself... Obama will get re-elected.
That's how DUMB the American public is. I like Obama, and i'm gonna give it time, but i'll be interested to see where we're at by the end of 2009. Obama is gonna have to have a great first year imo.
We re-elected Dumbya and Transformers is viewed as a work of art by many moviegoers, so yes...we have a very stupid bunch of people living in this country. That's not to say we're necessarily any dumber than the people living in other countries, but if you strictly look at our behavior in this country, quite often it's baffling.
What we need is a libertarian like Ron Paul who has the charisma of Obama. Paul doesn't have the charisma, but he has more integrity than anyone else in the Republican Party. When Limbaugh and his ilk are spouting off about big government, they're also carrying water for the Bush Administration's advancement of big government. When Obama campaigns as an anti-war guy, he then turns around and continues the same idiotic interventionist policies of Bush. Paul has been a consistent guy on all of this stuff. Get the government out of our lives, stop wasting our tax dollars to police the world and spend it instead on protecting our own borders, and most importantly protect the Constitution.
