Ronald Reagan was a better President than Barack Obama

Ronald ReaganI. Economic PolicyI want to thank my opponent for continuing to do the debate. We are now in round 4, which focuses on me and my opponent defending the cases after the rebuttals in round 3. My opponent has repeated the point that Reagan cut taxes, but also raised taxes. He also brings his point again that Reagan increased domestic spending. Once again, I'm going to point out what Reaganomics is as defined by Stephen Moore and William Niskanen (a Reagan economic advisor): "Reaganomics consisted of four key elements to reverse the high-inflation, slow-growth economic record of the 1970s: (1) a restrictive monetary policy designed to stabilize the value of the dollar and end runaway inflation; (2) a 25 percent across-the-board tax cut enacted (The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981) designed to spur savings, investment, work, and economic efficiency; (3) a promise to balance the budget through domestic spending restraint; and (4) an agenda to roll back government regulation." [1]We know that a military build-up was needed for Cold War doctrine, but what about that domestic spending restraint as pointed out on number three? Remember, the key word here is restraint. Under Jimmy Carter it was 3.5% annually. Under Ronald Reagan it was 1% annually. In other words, limited government spending as achieved. [1]The problem with my opponent's source is that it only looked at Reagan's spending nominally and doesn't factor domestic spending growth compared to Carter, which shows how limited government spending was. I will cite federal government outlays as a percentage of GDP as my secound source, which is more important than simple nominal outlays. In 1981, federal outlays as a percentage of GDP was 22.2% and in 1989 it was at 21.2%. That's a full percent lower and keep in mind that these are total outlays. Reagan's spending wasn't that large at all. [2]Regarding taxes, they were cut in 1981 and 1986. As a whole, taxes went down and not up. In 1982, there wasn't really an increase in taxes, especially as rates, but instead as more or less deduction cuts, which is part of the supply-side strategy. Arthur Laffer (another Reagan economic advisor) argues about it all the time. Speaking of which, Laffer has his own economic data which proves Reagan's supply-side tax cuts did directly cause the real GDP growth and unemployment reduction after inflation was conquered. Reagan's 1981 tax bill, which was a 25% reduction, went into effect over several phases. They only came fully into effect at the start of 1983. That entirely corresponds with the unemployment reduction and GDP growth. Now I cannot upload the graph since it is in pdf form, but it is my third source on page 4. A simple Google search will work for you. [3]We should also remember that Reagan's policies RAISED tax revenue because of the Laffer curve. If the tax rate is 100%, no one will work. If it's 0%, everyone will work but the government will receive less revenue. The point is to have a low rate so the majority of the country is working while at the same time maximizing the government's revenue. That did not happen with 91% and 70% percent tax rates before Reagan. The Reagan economy skyrocketed, but Laffer explains how revenue increased for the government with the tax cuts:"Let’s imagine we cut all income tax rates across the board to a true flat rate tax such that the static average tax rate drops from 9.1% of GDP starting in 1981 to 8.0% of GDP, and, as a result of this tax rate cut, GDP doubles. While the tax cut was designed to be static revenue neutral (i.e. given no change in the size of the economy, total tax receipts would be the same), the size of the economy grew dramatically, causing taxes as a share of GDP to fall as the denominator grew faster than the numerator. In others words, even though GDP doubled and tax revenues went up by 75%—both because of the tax cut—tax revenues as a percent of GDP fell to 8.0% from 9.1%." [3]Finally, restrictive monetary policy is part of Reaganomics and Reagan was a firm supporter of Paul Volcker at a time when the Fed policy was very unpopular. My opponent has also acknowledged that Reagan's tax cuts may have worked to bring down inflation. Let us remember that Volcker needed political protection and Reagan provided it as Samuelson explains:"Widespread congressional opposition to Volcker came from both Republicans and Democrats. Reagan was the nation’s chief political officer. Five words from him withdrawing support from Volcker would have been worth more than 50,000 from administration technocrats complaining about the money supply." [4]Something is wrong with my opponent's Baby Boom figures. Most baby boomers were already in the workforce by the 1970s. The Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. If you were born in 1946, you were twenty by 1966 which means you probably entered the workforce by then. Likewise, if you were born in 1956 you were in the workforce by 1976. That's most of the Baby Boomers. Only those born later or in the early 1960s just joined the workforce by the time of the Reagan years, but the Baby Boomers in the workforce did not create substantial economic growth because most were already working before Reagan's presidency. [5]II. Foreign PolicyI want it to be remembered that I said this:"Keep in mind that everything Reagan did during the Cold War was to support the fall of the Soviet Union."The key word here is support. I did not say Reagan's build-up was the only thing that led to the fall of communism, I'm only arguing that it was significant. We know communism has proven to be a failed system, but Reagan's policies accelerated the decline. It makes a big difference when the USSR collapsed in 1991 rather than having it live on for decades as a threat until the inevitable fall. Reagan's policy also rolled back communism, that vile and destructive ideology, across the world. In the 1970s, the Soviet Union was winning the Cold War. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union was losing the Cold War as proven by the expansion of democracy in many countries thanks to Ronald Reagan's support. I would prefer to have the USSR, a country that slaughtered millions of people, dead early than dead later. It's kind of like how Nazi Germany's system was going to fail, but we should'nt want it to still exist for decades. The Soviets could clearly see the disaster of trying to meet Reagan's military build-up at the Geneva summit:"According to minutes from the meeting, Gorbachev told Reagan the had observed to a Soviet scientist that he could see "no reason" for Reagan's commitment to SDI, but that the scientist had found the explanation: SDI would produce 600 billion to a trillion dollars in new military expenditures. In other words, SDI would be a tool in Reagan's economic war to bankrupt the USSR. "That was the reason" for SDI, said Gorbachev." [6]Gorbachev was well aware that billions and trillions of dollars would have to be spent on military expenditures in the USSR rather than domestic spending to help the country if Reagan went forward with SDI.Barack ObamaI. Economic PolicyMy opponent has seemed to have forgotten that Obama's recovery program came with a telling unemployment chart that was way off. Obama and his economic advisors naturally factored things like population when assembling this chart for the economic program. According to the chart below, the unemployment rate was not supposed to exceed 8% with the Obama stimulus package. They thought that without it unemployment would rise to 9%. Instead, with the Obama recovery program we had unemployment at 10% and it never reached its goals: Also, if we look from the trough (or peak) of the unemployment rates, when the recoveries start to get going, we see Reagan was at 10.8% unemployment and Obama was at 10%. Under Obama, we've had a 4.5 percent reduction in unemployment. Under Reagan, it was reduced by 4.6% by then. In other words, Reagan reduced more unemployment than Obama so far when looking at the peak unemployment rates.The recession has been so bad because Obama and his fiscal stimulus policies are actually contradicting Fed policy. Scott Sumner of the Mercatus Center writes this well:"To see why monetary offset continues to be operative, consider the sorts of statements continually made by Fed officials. We never hear them explicitly say they’ll sabotage fiscal stimulus, but we do hear them say they will calibrate the level of monetary stimulus to the health of the economy. For instance, the recent Evans Rule commits the Fed to hold interest rates close to zero until unemployment falls to 6.5 percent or core inflation rises above 2.5 percent. Because fiscal stimulus would presumably make this happen sooner, it would also, ipso facto, cause the Fed to raise interest rates sooner than otherwise. Thus fiscal stimulus would lead to tighter money over time." [7]II. Foreign PolicyObama's foreign policy has been a disaster because, again, there is no strategy. Reagan had a strategy that worked effectively. Obama has no strategy and that is why ISIS is spreading.Sources1. Niskanen, William, and Stephen Moore. "Cato Institute Policy Analysis No. 261: Supply-Side Tax Cuts and the Truth about the Reagan Economic Record." (n.d.): n. pag. Cato.org. Cato Institute, 22 Oct. 1996. Web.2. http://www.census.gov...3. Laffer, Arthur. "Revisiting the Reagan Tax Cuts." The Laffer Center. The Pacific Research Center, 2015. Web. 01 July 2015.4. Samuelson, Robert. "Setting the Record Straight on Reagan, Volcker and Inflation: Part 2." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 21 Jan. 2015. Web. 01 July 2015.5. "Baby Boomers." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2010. Web. 01 July 2015.6. Kengor, Paul. "The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism." Regan Books: New York. 2006.7. Sumner, Scott. "Why the Fiscal Multiplier Is Roughly Zero." Mercatus on Policy (2013): 1-4. The Mercatus Center. George Mason University, Sept. 2012. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.