The ghost of Ronald Reagan is about to haunt President Obama. If Mitt Romney has any political savvy at all, he will begin channeling the late president and introduce his ghost into the economic debate forthwith.
Back in July of 1980, when Reagan was challenging President Jimmy Carter, the unemployment rate in America was 7.8 percent — close to what it is now. But the inflation rate was more than 13 percent, and that was eroding American wealth at a frightening clip. Reagan seized on the economic turmoil to hammer Carter as an incompetent, and that won the election for the former actor and governor of California.
After Reagan moved into the White House, he walked the walk. He convinced Congress to drop the federal income tax rate for the wealthiest Americans from an incredible 70 percent to 28 percent. Reagan also held the line on federal hiring. During his eight years in office, just 12,000 federal workers were added to the payroll. By contrast, Carter hired 100,000 federal employees in four years.
As history unfolded, the American economy roared back during the Reagan era, making him a hero to free-marketers and small-government devotees. His legacy was built on robust capitalism and effective opposition to the communist world.
In 2012, America is not bedeviled by inflation, but we are stuck in the economic mud. Under Obama, government spending has reached record levels, and in three years, Obama has added about 130,000 federal workers to the payroll: more than 10 times the number Reagan added in five fewer years.
It is breathtaking.
And now Obama wants to jack up tax rates on the affluent all over the place. Income, capital gains and dividends all will be taxed at a significantly higher rate if Congress goes along with the president. Again, this is the exact opposite of what Reagan did.
What Obama hopes to accomplish is hard to ascertain. The feds will derive about $85 billion in extra revenue a year if the president's proposed tax hike is passed. But listen to this: The feds spend $85 billion every eight and a half days, according to the Treasury Department. Talk about putting your finger in a leaking dike.
Of course, the downside of raising taxes on the wealthy is that it might further constrict investment and consumer spending, thereby harming the already fragile economy. Is that risk really worth eight and a half days of revenue?
And so the ghost of Ronald Reagan hovers, just waiting for a Romney seance in order to make his presence felt. We do indeed live in scary times.
Veteran TV news anchor Bill O'Reilly is host of the Fox News show "The O'Reilly Factor" and author of the book "Pinheads and Patriots: Where You Stand in the Age of Obama." To find out more about Bill O'Reilly, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com. This column originates on the website www.billoreilly.com.
COPYRIGHT 2012 BillOReilly.com
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
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Hindsight is always 20/20. Yes, what Reagan did worked and people still remember that. Gallup did a poll and he turned out to be one of the most popular recent presidents. The economic and political landscape today is a very different one, so what worked yesterday might not work today. Or it might. What is clear is that what we are doing right now is not working, and something needs to change. Obama is planning more of the same. More debt, war and drones. I hope in 20 years from now Gallup polls will remember him as one of the least popular recent presidents. I think I'll get my wish too.
Comment: #1
Posted by: Chris McCoy
Mon Jul 16, 2012 9:29 AM
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Yep, but Romney is no Ronald Reagan, either. The ghost of Reagan will haunt the Repes more than it will the Dems.
Chris, too early to tell about Obama, as frustrating as that is to consider. His second term, and he will have one, thanks to the utter incompetence of the opposition, will be what defines him.
Comment: #2
Posted by: Masako
Mon Jul 16, 2012 4:46 PM
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I'm not convinced at this point that Obama is for sure going to have a second term. 60% chance maybe. But your absolutly right that his second term will define him. My fear is that his second term, with no re-election to worry about, will be far more extreme than his first.
Comment: #3
Posted by: Chris McCoy
Tue Jul 17, 2012 6:42 AM
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Re: Chris McCoy. Yep, that is the trillion dollar question, isn't it? I hope for more advanced age, the lessons of experience that come with it, and fading ambition to give way to long-term wisdom that transcends the distractions of the hour. He talks a good show. We'll see what he really delivers in the final four years.
Comment: #4
Posted by: Masako
Wed Jul 18, 2012 8:05 PM
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Nothing is his past suggests that Obama will turn around and do whats right in a second term. I think that a victory in November will further inflate his already enormous ego and validate his policies in his mind. I suppose there is a small chance of him turning around, but it would be on the same level as Romney suddenly turning around and forsaking Wall St. Small to say the least.
Comment: #5
Posted by: Chris McCoy
Thu Jul 19, 2012 11:06 AM
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Re: Chris McCoy. Those who "turn around" don't give many clues about their future behavior, especially when swimming in a pool of alligators. Look at the silly, micro-minded John Roberts of the Supremes.
Expect surprises from Obama in the coming four. I guarantee they won't be as vacuous as the "reasoning" that launched Roberts' coming out.
Comment: #6
Posted by: Masako
Thu Jul 19, 2012 7:11 PM
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Ok, you have a point about Roberts. I'm sure his ruling spun the heads of many republicans in ways they weren't meant to spin. Many dems think of the overall ruling as a victory while reps think of it as a defeat. Both are wrong. Even though the mandate was upheld, the forced medicaid expansion was shot down. This basically tells the government that there is a limit to spending. And theres other stuff in there too. It was a complex ruling.
Comment: #7
Posted by: Chris McCoy
Fri Jul 20, 2012 6:36 AM
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Re: Chris McCoy. Yes, very complicated, as usual. One has to wonder if they don't specialize in complexity for entertainment and feelings of self worth.
Personally, I parted company on interstate commerce, and things just got worse from there. Leave it to the robed idiots to say Congress doesn't have the power to fix (try to fix? pretend to try to fix?) perhaps the single greatest problem in interstate commerce today, on a glib distinction between getting you because you spend versus getting you because you don't spend.
As if the government can't force you to spend anyway. So that sharpie Roberts decides to use the magic word "tax," and all of that silly sophistry about the limits of the Commerce Clause melts away. Our fate on an issue as huge as national healthcare should not have to be controlled by such intellectual disingenuity.
Comment: #8
Posted by: Masako
Fri Jul 20, 2012 9:13 AM
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I forgot you are against the individual mandate. The fundamentals of it puzzle me. Older people are richer than younger people. So they want the younger people to supplement the older people's healthcare. That seems like the opposite of Obamas typical class warfare. They do the same thing with homes. Homeowners are richer than renters. Yet they want everyone to bail out homeowners. Both these scenarios have poor bailing out the wealthy. Makes no sense.
Comment: #9
Posted by: Chris McCoy
Fri Jul 20, 2012 8:11 PM
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Here's an idea:
1. Why not tax the highest incomes and lower the minimum-wage earners' incomes? I grew up in a nieghborhood of million dollar homes, and I promise, you, the rich waste their money. Poor people who CHOOSE to WORK need their money badly.
2. Why not cut Federal income tax AND cut Federal aid to the states? Tell the states to do their own taxing. If the state of Florida wants money to build a bullet train line, say "tax your people to pay for it."
Comment: #10
Posted by: Roo-Roo
Sun Jul 29, 2012 12:10 AM
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