The Values of the Democratic Party vs. the Republican Party

My opponent talks about the fact that republican run states perform the worst, therefore the republican financial policies are "backwards" and the democrat financial policies must be better. He uses a single tool, GDP per capita, as the basis for an entire economic evaluation for his proposal. First I will say that comparing states and their economic status doesn't necessarily equate to how well a party runs a state. There are other factors at play that can skew results. What if a drought hit a midwest state that relies upon farming? Obviously the results would be skewed. I will, however, go ahead and take a look at the top 10 states of 2015. I won't, however, use simply one indicator. When using the same metric as Business Insider, one sees that numerous factors are involved with assessing the economic health of a state. To assess it properly, seven metrics are used: 1) unemployment, 2) percent change in non-farm payroll jobs, 3) GDP per capita, 4) GDP growth, 5) change in housing prices, 6) average weekly wage, and 7) change in average weekly wage. When using these seven metrics, the top 10 states were, in order, Washington, Washington DC, Colorado, Utah, Nebraska, Massachusetts, Nevada, South Dakota, Florida, and California. Now we have to define what is a republican state versus a democrat state. The only way to truly define that would be if the governorship and the entire state legislature is the same party. Otherwise, it is a split. If there is any split whatsoever, that means that there is going to be a true mix of policies, making the result of that state's economic status undetermined for our purposes. Thus we must throw out those findings. On this list of ten states (including DC), four of the states are split: Washington, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Nevada. Two of the states are democrat: Washington DC and California. Four of the states are republican: Utah, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Florida. It seems to me that the number of republican states outweighs the democrat states by a 4-2 margin. This makes me think that maybe the republican financial policies aren't that backward after all. When looking at federal fiscal policies and which party system works better, it becomes incredibly hard to truly say because of the high number of variables which affect the economy, but Reagan and Obama had somewhat similar economic circumstances. The two presidents had opposing tactics at dealing with their situations, however. Obama immediately went to work with the democrat-filled congress to pass the single-handed largest tax and entitlement program the nation has ever seen: the Affordable Care Act (it is also the most ironic name ever given!). He then allowed the vast majority of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 to expire, thus increasing taxes. He also thought it best to print more money, also called "qualitative easing." Reagan dealt with his situation by cutting taxes across the board to every single American citizen. By doing this, everyone will have more money in their pockets, which they can invest more in themselves or in other businesses. This creates a trickle-down economy where not only do businesses make more money, thus putting more money into the tax coffers for the government, but it employs more people. The more people who are employed, the better they feel about themselves, which translates into being good citizens. Now let's look at what happened in each scenario. The facts don't lie. 1) Long-term unemployment (longer than 6 months... and compared to total unemployment) was 18% under Reagan during the recovery and 45% under Obama during the recovery; 2) It took only 6 months for recovery under Reagan's policies compared to 3 years under Obama's policies. This is yet another reason why I would take a republican fiscal policy over a democrat policy any day of the week! This isn't even taking into account the democrat tactic of redistribution of wealth. Psychologically, it is well-known that when you do things for yourself, you feel better about yourself. When you are just given something without having to work for it, you don't appreciate it as much nor do you really feel good about it. By having policies that empower individuals, you create good citizens. Good citizens make for a good society, which is what this whole debate is about. My opponent brought up the issue of deregulation. Republicans are NOT for a system without regulation. The problem we run in to is OVER-regulation. There are certain standards that can be agreed upon, which then should become the baseline. Next my opponent brought up Dodd-Frank and insinuated that repealing that would only help the "greedy banks." He says that the banks created the housing crash of 2008 by giving loans to anyone. Here is the history. In 1992, Barney Frank lobbied for increasing the number of loans to low income people. After all, being a disciple of the great democrat FDR, owning a home should be a "right". So in 1993, the legislation made it through a full democrat congress and was signed by the democrat Bill Clinton. This legislation MANDATED that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the two government-backed entities who hold the vast majority of mortgages in the country) give a full 30% of its loans to people at or below the median income line. Then in 2000, right before he left office, Bill Clinton increased that percentage from 30% to 50%. Then in 2007, George W. Bush, going against the republican party, sided with the congressional democrat majority and upped it to 55%. Again, the government MANDATED that 55% of ALL mortgages were to be given to people at or below the median income line. The only way to do this and make it affordable was to offer a "subprime", or low quality, loan. In 2007, 70% of ALL subprime loans were with the government-backed Fannie and Freddie. Less than 30% of these loans were actually held by banks! Again, it was the democrat's legislation that FORCED banks to give these low quality loans that created the housing crash. It was NOT the fault of the banks, as they were only doing what they were told to do by the government. But what is Dodd-Frank? Dodd-Frank is the legislation that aimed to stop the insanity that Barney Frank helped start in the first place. It went too far. It stopped the subprime loan business, which is about the only thing good about this legislation. The 2,200 page document contains regulation after regulation. The effects of these regulations, 1) increases consumer costs by outlawing certain bank fees, which resulted in the end of free checking for low-end (i.e. working class) clients; 2) increased centralized banking because it drowned the "little guy" banks. The huge bank corporations could easily withstand the extra costs to keep up with that 2,200 page document, but the little community banks couldn't, and many closed because of this; 3) community banks would lend to people that they would shop with at the grocery store or meet at the park with the kids. In other words, these small banks knew who they would lend to, which also made people more accountable for paying back the small bank. The default rate for these banks was minimal compared to the big bank corporations. But instead, when these small banks went out of business, the people migrated to the big banks. This is the effect of Dodd-Frank: it made the big bank corporations even bigger and stronger, and made our cities and towns worse. My opponent brought up the military and President Trump. He compares Trump to the likes of Mussolini and Hitler, but one must take a step that isn't there for that. Who were Mussolini and Hitler prior to being their countries' leader? They were military men. Military men with conquest on their minds. Who was Trump prior to becoming president? He was a real estate investment tycoon. A businessman. I'd say there is a slight difference there. It is this difference that tells me that we are NOT dealing with another Mussolini or Hitler. This now leads in to my opponent claiming that Trump's desire for a military "build-up" must mean that Trump is preparing to invade. But is Trump's statement of wanting to re-build the military really about preparing for invasion? First, the history. Obama signed orders to have a natural draw-down of Army numbers by not recruiting more troops, thus diminishing the force to 450,000 by 2018. This, combined with the diminished military spending on ships, submarines, and other military equipment, has dated our military force. Independent national defense experts now state that our Army has become "smaller, older, and weaker." They go on to state that one-third of the Army is at "unacceptable" readiness. With Russia, Iran, China, and ISIS being threats to our national security, it would only make sense to improve our position. As for Trump, he has stated that he wants to "re-build" the military. It should be obvious that it is in these areas that have been highlighted. He has also publicly stated that he wants to see deployment times diminished for the troops in order to give them more time with their families. The only way to do this would be to add to the number of troops overall. Instead of drawing down the numbers, he wants to boost the numbers by 60,000. Increased numbers of troops equates to decreased deployment times. It is that simple. With the threats out there to our national security, the best possible scenario is peace through deterrance. Yes, we do indeed have the largest military in the world. We need to keep it that way. Peace through deterrance! Sources www.businessinsider.com/state-economy-ranking-q4-2015-2016-1 www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2011/05/05/reaganomics-vs-obamanomics-facts-and-figures www.militarytimes.com/articles/donald-trump-military-spending www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/12/hey-barney-frank-the-government-did-cause-the-housing-crisis/249903