How Reagan Would Campaign Against Obama

By Randy DeSoto (Red County):

Two speeches that Ronald Reagan gave, one when announcing his Presidential candidacy in November of 1979 and another during his re-election campaign in 1984, seem particularly poignant for the times of economic turbulence that we’re passing through right now.

In the late 70’s President Jimmy Carter stated in the obvious from the Oval Office in July of 1979, when he gave his famous “Crisis of Confidence,” aka “Malaise Speech.”

If you’ve never seen it, watch even just the first couple of minutes of this dreary mess:

Carter posited, “For the first time in the history of our country, a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years.”

At that time, the county was going through a period of stagflation: high unemployment, no growth, yet rising interest rates. Unemployment reached 10% and interest rates stood at twice that.  There was a pervading sense that poverty would continue to surge and wealth would continue to be destroyed. It was feared that we were going to keep doing what we did in the past: grow the government, increase entitlements, create even more red tape for businesses trying to compete in a global economy.

Enter Ronald Reagan, stage right.  The one-time actor, and former two-term governor of California announced his intentions to seek the Presidency. The words he spoke to the nation about President Carter and the Democrats policies then, could just as easily be spoken today. Taking on Carter’s predictions of gloom and doom and a diminishing country, Reagan said,

“They tell us…that the America of the coming years will be a place where — because of our past excesses — it will be impossible to dream and make those dreams come true.  I don’t believe that. And I don’t believe you do either. That is why I am seeking the presidency. I cannot and will not stand by and see this great country destroy itself. Our leaders attempt to blame their failures on circumstances beyond their control, on false estimates by unknown, unidentifiable experts who rewrite modern history in an attempt to convince us our high standard of living, the result of thrift and hard work, is somehow selfish extravagance which we must renounce as we join in sharing scarcity. I don’t agree that our nation must resign itself to inevitable decline, yielding its proud position to other hands. I am totally unwilling to see this country fail in its obligation to itself and to the other free peoples of the world.”

Click HERE for the entire speech.

Reagan won the election of 1979 in a landslide, 44 states to 6, and for the first time since the 1950’s the Republicans controlled the Senate. They were able to build a coalition in the Democratically controlled House to pass measures that lowered tax rates drastically from a top marginal rate of 70% down to 28%. They also cut regulations, and privatized vast swaths of jobs once performed by the federal government. The result was that the economy boomed, and experienced the largest peacetime economic growth in American history. The funny thing was that despite the lower tax rates, revenues to the federal treasury doubled, because so many people were working and getting paid more. Unemployment fell in half from 10% to 5%, and as one would expect, the poverty rate shrank too.

Read more at Red County HERE.