With the passing over the weekend of former first lady Nancy Reagan at the age of 94, it brings into sharp contrast the era of President Barack Obama and the era and legacy of President Ronald Reagan.
Let me preface by saying that I in no way consider Mr. Reagan to be perfect as a man or a president and not even as a believer in Jesus Christ but he did advocate a life of faith and Christian principles as the solution to many of the problems we faced then and now in the United States.
President Reagan, like President Obama, inherited a poor economy and a recession brought about by bad policies under two administrations failing to understand how a true free market economy operates.
While I admit that what President Obama faced at the beginning of his term was initially worse because of the event driven nature of the ’08 implosion, it was not that much worse.
President Ronald Reagan also faced a nation in decline and decay but took a much different approach to fixing it and he started and ended with a congress controlled by the opposing party, working with them to turn the ship around in just a few short years, enough to dominate in his re-election bid.
I would fail miserably to summarize the Reagan years in a few short words but suffice to say he took a few core principles such as the government should be limited, the people should keep most of the money they earn but still fund the government using the Laugher curve and best of all, that America should be that shinning city on a hill and you can sum up where the policies of Reagan flowed from.
These core principles guided policies such as peace through strength, where we stopped the evil of the Soviet Union and terrorism by carrying a big stick and using it from time to time instead of leading from behind.
Focusing on the economic part of the Reagan years, we saw the economy rebound in just three short years by use of the much maligned trickle down economics. When people were allowed not only to keep more of their money but encouraged to invest it into small and large businesses everyone’s wealth grew at an incredible rate and the economy boomed.
Innovation encouraged by allowing people to take risks and enjoy the rewards of that risk if they succeeded allowed us once again to compete on the world stage from computer advancements to the automotive industry.
Compare this to the Obama years, where the government has taken over at least some of the auto industry and much of the healthcare industry and limits the freedoms of business and taxes the snot out anyone trying to invest wealth into businesses of any size and you can understand why the economy of 2016 is on the verge of another recession instead of a boom.
The Reagan era and the Obama era are both lessons in how to fix and how not to fix an economy. President Reagan stood in direct opposition to the very policies and underlying principles of President Obama as godless and anti-American.
Mr. Reagan would have most likely told Mr. Obama, “There you go again, not solving the problem but being the problem, now tear down that wall.”
