Posted on 04/30/2011 5:24:55 PM PDT by Hojczyk
During the 2008 Democratic primaries, then-Sen. Barack Obama caused a stir when he said, "Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not, and in a way that Bill Clinton did not." Pundits speculated whether the optimistic, charismatic, Obama could move the nation's politics to the left in a way comparable to how President Reagan had moved the country to the right. This comparison took hold early in the Obama presidency as his approval ratings nose-dived in a pattern similar to Reagan's. The problem now for Democrats is that, though both presidents took office with a weak economy, Reagan's pro-growth policies worked, while Obama's big government agenda has failed miserably.
The numbers tell the story. The Commerce Department reported yesterday that the U.S. economy grew at an anemic 1.8 percent rate during the first quarter of 2011, more evidence that the Obama recovery has been tepid, at best. At a comparable point in Reagan's presidency, the shaky economy he inherited was headed to a robust recovery, with gross domestic product surging by 5.1 percent in the first quarter of 1983. For the rest of 1983, the economy grew at a 4.5 percent rate, then leaped 7.2 percent in 1984, as Reagan won a landslide re-election. Today, the Federal Reserve Board projects GDP growth of 3.1 percent to 3.3 percent in 2011, and 3.5 percent to 4.2 percent in 2012. Note, too, that Reagan took office after a year of 13.5 percent inflation, but by 1984, it was 4.3 percent.
The contrasts between Obama and Reagan couldn't be starker. Reagan signed the biggest tax cut in history, removed burdensome regulations on businesses, and began to release the nation from the choke hold of labor unions, as exemplified by his firing of 11,000 striking air traffic controllers. Obama has pursued the opposite course, opening with an $862 billion economic stimulus package even though similar policies proved ineffective during America's Great Depression in the 1930s and Japan's lost decade in the 1990s. He spent over a year pushing for his government takeover of the health care system, legislation that included $813 billion in tax increases in addition to a raft of new regulations on businesses.
His response to the financial crisis was to create burdensome new layers of regulatory bureaucracy. On energy policy, he's smothered domestic oil and gas exploration at a time of skyrocketing gas prices and unleashed the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate every corner of the economy by capping carbon emissions. And he's allowed his union cronies to run amok in the Labor Department and on the National Labor Relations Board. There is one way Obama is like Reagan - he's moved the country decidedly to the right by vividly reminding Americans of the destructiveness of liberal policies.
BINGO!
Reagan? He’s no Millard Fillmore.
Reagan’s early ratings nose-dived because he inherited a huge mess from Jimmy Carter and had to take difficult economic measures to fix it. And because he had the entire press working against him.
Obama’s ratings have nosedived in spite of having the entire press on his side, covering up even more assiduously than they did under Bill Clinton. And in spite of his refusing to take difficult economic measures to fix the mess that the previous Democrat congress, and to some extent the big-spending George Bush, left him.
Instead of fixing it, he has shoveled out money to his friends without ceasing. But the problem is that he is disagreeable, unpleasant, lazy, stupid, and incompetent, and that has grown increasingly clear to everyone but the low-lifes he is shoveling money to.
Quite a big difference.
Reagan= created 17 million jobs
Obozo= negative 17 million jobs
any questions?
and Obama has PRAVDA in the form of 90 percent of the media, and a Federal Reserve ripe in liberal cronyism. It is truly a shame that the media will never ask him in comparison i.e., Mr. President do you believe that the Recession inherited by Ronald Reagan was similar to the one that you inherited and why did you approach this recession with the polar opposite polices then your predecessor did and haven’t those policies now proven to be failures?
Obama by the numbers.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2712175/posts
This is STUNNING! UNCANNY! President Reagan as if he predicted the disaster which would take place if legislation such as Obamacare passed....unbelievable
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iShCXx_xZDQ
Ronald Reagan was an American.
Indeed. He’s not even at the same level as Jimmy Carter.
So Obama is a reverse Reagan...makes perfect sense now!!
Obozo= Saved negative 17 million jobs /s
Indeed. He’s not even at the same level as Jimmy Carter.
Agree. And at least Carter knows what end of a hammer to hold. BHO probably couldn’t tell a hammer from a screwdriver.
Won’t it be fun to experience forty years of BHO, after his single term presidency, flying around the world doing his version of what Carter is doing now. We just can’t get a break.
I was hoping that the election results last year would give us the break we were hoping for. We have a voice at the table now, but not enough to stop the damage yet.
Obama, you’re no president.
You’re a Marxist/Muslim usurper.
Really??? Noooo...
Obama is an ideologue. Obama treats his detractors with distain. The feeling has become mutual.
Are you kidding? Obama isn’t JIMMY Carter!
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