Ronald Reagan was a better President than FDR

My CasePresident: Ronald Wilson ReaganParty: RepublicanIn Office: 1981 to 1989I. Economic PolicyThe first place we should look at in the presidency of Ronald Reagan would be his economic policy. President Reagan was a strong supporter of supply-side economics, the idea that the economic growth could be stimulated through lower taxes, less government regulations, less government intervention, and less government spending. From January 1981 to January 1989, the unemployment rate peaked at 10.8% and then went down to 5.4%. This is a very strong record for an economic recovery. [1]However that is not just it, federal revenue had been declining at 2.8% per year and after President Reagan's tax cuts it grew at 2.7% per year. In addition, real GDP growth was averaging at 0.9% before the tax cuts and 4.8% after. [2]Finally, Mr. Cain and Mr. Lowrie write that:"During this period, promising technology companies such as Apple Computer and Microsoft launched initial public offerings of stock, while others such as Cisco Systems and Compaq (later acquired by Hewlett-Packard) received expansion capital and later went public." [2]This is because of a capital gains tax cut signed by President Reagan. It allowed the creation of companies like Apples. Think about it, you might have an apple in your house. How would it feel if Ronald Reagan had never become president. His policies that brought the creation of Apple and other companies would have never happened and thus these companies would have trouble growing.Reagan's succesful policies were eventually nicknamed Reaganomics. When the Heritage Foundation looks are Reagan's record, it finds that:"No matter how advocates of big government try to rewrite history, Ronald Reagan's record of fiscal responsibility continues to stand as the most successful economic policy of the 20th century. His tax reforms triggered an economic expansion that continues to this day. His investments in national security ended the Cold War and made possible the subsequent defense spending reductions that are largely responsible for the current federal surpluses. His efforts to restrain the expansion of federal government helped to limit the growth of domestic spending." [3]Mr. Sperry notes that Preisdent Reagan's economic boom lasted for 92 months without a recession. This period was from November 1982 to July 1990, the longest period of sustained growth during peacetime. The growth from the President Reagan's boom lasted more than twice as long as the average period of expansions since World War 2. [3]II. Cold WarNow let's move on to one of the president's greatest achievements: defeating the USSR, the greatest threat to our country ever. Far more threatening than an idiotic German fuhrer who lost did more to lose the war he started than the Allies ever did. There were three factors that brought down the Evil Empire:1. Military Strategy - When President Reagan entered office, military morale was low and so was the pay. President Carter had cut a lot of programs in the military. Under the Reagan Administration, military spending skyrocketed in the crusade against communism. This included the famous SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) programs and several over and covert missions to aid anti-communists guerrilla forces in Central America, South America, Africa, and Afghanistan.2. Economic Strategy - Yes, Reaganomics helped win the Cold War. The recovering economy helped President Reagan's military buildup. The free market capitalist United States was too much for the USSR which had an its inefficient command-directed communist economic system.3. Political Strategy - Politics played a role to in defeating the reds. With a strong ally in British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, President Reagan launched a global political form of blitzkrieg on the USSR and other communist political leaders. The reds had seriously underestimated the American president and saw him as a "warmonger".Together, these strategies defeated the USSR and by January 1989 when President Reagan left office the USSR was in great trouble. In 1991, the USSR would collapse. Soviet Head of State Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of perestroika (re-structuring) and glasnost (openness) proved too little, too late. Gorbachev told the History Channel in 2002, "I don't know what would have happened had [Reagan] not been there." [4,5]President: Franklin Delano RooseveltParty: DemocratIn Office: 1933 to 1945I. The Failure of the New DealPresident Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected in 1933 in hope of ending the Great Depression. His policies would not just fail, but actually prolonged the Depression. FDR put in place the New Deal (it really is the Fail Deal and we will find out later). Unlike Reagan's supply-side strategy, Roosevelt took a demand-side strategy. This meant maintaining or raising the tax rates (usually on the wealthy) to pay for programs that would help the poor and increase demand which would mean more people would buy stuff to help businesses and the economy would recover. That might be true in a magical liberal fairy tale, but this is real life.Mr. Higgs argues:"There's no doubt that Roosevelt changed the character of the American government--for the worse. Many of the reforms of the 1930s remain embedded in policy today: acreage allotments, price supports and marketing controls in agriculture, extensive regulation of private securities, federal intrusion into union-management relations, government lending and insurance activities, the minimum wage, national unemployment insurance, Social Security and welfare payments, production and sale of electrical power by the federal government, fiat money--the list goes on."So FDR, made it worse in the country for the future as well. [6] Look at the awful unemployment rate here, among non-farm jobless workers:http://www.debate.org...The New Deal took a long time to bring unemployment down. As we can see here, unemployment finally went under 20% during the Great Depression.Many people argue that World War 2 ended the Great Depression and saved free market capitalism, but this is not true either. World War 2 did not support private companies, only big government increased its investing. The private companies were stuck with little investment. As said here:"Investment took off from 1941 onwards to reach, as a share of GDP, way more than double the level that investment stood at in 1940. Why was that? Well, it was not the result of a pick-up in private sector investment. What happened was a massive rise in government investment and spending. In 1940, private sector investment was still below the level of 1929 and actually fell further during the war. The state sector took over nearly all investment, as resources (value) were diverted to the production of arms and other security measures in a war economy." [7]II. Packing the Court and Locking Up the JapaneseOne of the most infamous things FDR did during his presidency was attempting to "pack" Supreme Court. Basically he wanted to add more judges to the court because he was frustrated that they ruled some of his New Deal legislation illegal. This was terrible and the American people were strongly against it. This move was very unethical and wrong because FDR wanted to add new liberal court judges in order to defeat the judges at the time that had been appointed by Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. Another terrible policy he enacted, without Congressional approval. Japanese civilians lost many personal items and other goods that they owned. They were then put in camps for the rest of the war. A terrible move if ever there was one. There were only 127,000 Japanese-Americans at the time, so if they were a threat there was little chance they could succeed based on simple numbers. Who just happened to compensate the Japanese for this? None other than Ronald Reagan in 1988! He signed an act giving the Japanese-Americans $1.6 billion in reparations. [8]ConclusionClearly, Ronald Reagan was a far better president than Franklin Roosevelt ever was based on economic policy and foreign policy. While Reagan ended his recession quickly, the Great Depression did not end until 1948. While Reagan was for civil rights and helped Japanese-Americans, FDR locked them up. The United States was needed to fight the Cold War far more than it was in World War 2.Sources1. http://portalseven.com...2. Cain, Herman and Rich Lowrie. 9-9-9 An Army of Davids. 2012.3. Sperry, Peter B. "The Real Reagan Economic Record: Responsible and Successful Fiscal Policy." The Heritage Foundation. N.p., 1 June 2004. Web.4. Gaffney, Dennis and Peter Gaffney. The Seven Day-Scholar: The Presidents. 2012.5. Morelock, Jerry D. "Ronald Reagan's Cold War." Armchair General IX.5 (2012): 18-19. 6. Higgs, Robert. "How FDR Made the Depression Worse." The Free Market XIII.2 (1995)7. Casey, Doug. "Escaping the Great Depression - and Extending the Greater Depression." CaseyResearch.com. The Casey Report, n.d. Web.8. http://en.wikipedia.org...http://www.youtube.com...http://www.youtube.com...