Ronald Reagan was a Better President than Barack Obama

Ronald ReaganI. Economic Policy"Crediting Reagan's 1981 tax-cuts for bringing the economy out of stagflation is false. In fact, most credit is given to Paul Volcker, the Federal Reserve Chief under Carter and Reagan. Volcker is well known for ending high-levels of inflation during this time, which helped pull the country out of its crisis."This is false because the reason the 1981-82 recession got so bad was because of Paul Volcker's actions to disrupt the money supply. The restrictive monetary policies naturally brought down inflation, but hit unemployment badly:"Yet, as inflation plummeted, unemployment skyrocketed. The Phillips curve struck back with a vengeance. The unemployment rate rose from 7 to nearly 11 percent, which meant more than 10 million Americans were out of work. Businesses began to close doors. Farmers suffered foreclosures." [1]And: "Volcker deserves high praise for the change in policy. But Reagan clearly warrants a large part of the credit for endorsing the overdue correction in Federal Reserve policy from the high-inflation 1970s. A major element of Reaganomics, in addition to the tax cuts, was sound money--a policy the nationhad not followed since the late 1960s. The Federal Reserve's policy of sweating out inflation took place with the explicit approval of the Reagan administration, even though that policy contributed to the deep recession of 1981-82 and the unexpectedly large and immediate fall in inflation was a major factor in the budget deficit explosion in the early 1980s." [2]Next, my opponent blames Reagan for the 2008 economic crisis that Obama had to deal with. This is highly foolish as three presidents served after Reagan and before the recession. In fact, financial regulations grew under the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. As study conducted concluded the results: "The past few decades have witnessed a significant expansion in the number of financial the widely held belief that our financial market regulations were “rolled back.” While many regulators may have been shortsighted and over-confident in their own ability to spare our financial markets from collapse, this failing is one of regulation, not deregulation. When one scratches below the surface of the “deregulation” argument, it becomes apparent that the usual suspects, like the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, did not cause the current crisis and that the supposed refusal of regulators to deal with derivatives and “predatory” mortgages would have had little impact on the actual course of events, as these issues were not central to the crisis. To explain the financial crisis, and avoid the next one, we should look at the failure of regulation, not at a mythical deregulation." [3] II. Foreign PolicyMy arguments that Reagan won the Cold War have not been refuted. My opponent does criticize the president for the Lebanon crisis, but Marines are meant to fight and be in dangerous areas. It is a war zone, so obviously they would be attacked the Marine Corps decided how to protect their own Marines.Overall however, Ronald Reagan is responsible for the greatest victory in world history, more than World War 2 and World War 1 combined. My opponent criticizes Reagan for raising the deficit and cutting taxes, but during massive wars like the Cold War it is natural for the debt and deficit to increase. Do you blame Lincoln for giving us huge war debt during the Civil War? The goal was noble and we had to fight the enemy. Finally, his tax cuts actually raised revenue. [4]Barack ObamaI. Economic Policy"The economy shrunk more than 8% preceding his first quarter as President. When Reagan took office, he did not have nearly as much financial crisis to take on as Obama did. Comparing the two is like comparing apples to oranges."When Reagan entered office unemployment was already at 7% and rose to 11% as a result of the Fed's actions. He was losing hundreds of thousands of jobs too and the recession was far worse than the current one. Stagflation is more dangerous than inflation or deflation. Obama's stimulus package and auto bailouts were a weak response to recovering from the recession. He should have done exactly what Reagan did: supply-side tax cuts. Those tax cuts under Reagan brought a faster recovery than Obama's demand-side strategy has been. "It is actually Bill Clinton who has the longest period of sustained growth during peacetime of a 120 month expansion from 1991-2000."According to the Cato study, the Reagan/Bush period from 1981 to 1990 saw a 92 month economic expansion. Clinton, before his 1997 capital gains tax cuts, had seen his economy grow at 65 months. He cut the capital gains tax in 1997 and saw growth and revenue skyrocket. It is because he cut taxes, not raised it, that the economy rapidly grew. [2,4]Finally, Google Finance is wrong, MSN found its own results in Dow Jones growth which gives Reagan 130% growth in the Dow Jones average and Obama 58% growth. [5]II. Foreign Policy"You can"t just dismiss the killing of America"s greatest enemy in the 21st century. This is not irrelevant. All victories against other leading terrorists cannot be dismissed either. Ordering the killing of Osama Bin Laden was one of the most important accomplishments Obama has had in his presidency thus far. "We are really early in the century to determine if Bin Laden is America's greatest. The Soviet Union was far more powerful and more dangerous. It is not just about killing leaders, it is also about forever economically and militarily damaging an opposing power. Reagan saw that happen, Obama did not.The problem with Obama and the embassy was that it wasn't the military, but his own State Department that was in charge. This was not even a war zone, the rebellion against the government was over, but they still ended up dead.Sources1. D'Souza, Dinesh. Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader. New York: Free, 1997. Print.2. Niskanen, William A., and Stephen Moore. "Cato Institute Policy Analysis No. 261: Supply-Side Tax Cuts and the Truth about the Reagan Economic Record." Cato.org. Cato Institute, 22 Oct. 1996. Web.3. Calabria, Mark A. "Did Deregulation Cause the Financial Crisis?" Cato.org. Cato Institute, July 2009. Web.4. Laffer, Arthur. "The Laffer Curve: Past, Present, and Future." Heritage.org. The Heritage Foundation, 1 June 2004. Web.5. Blaine, Charley. "Stocks Have Had a Great Run in Obama's Term." MSN.com. MSN Money, 5 Nov. 2012. Web.