Ronald Reagan was a better President than Barack Obama

As per the rules, I will not address Pro’s case this round and will just introduce my arguments. Framework: To win this debate, I do not need to prove Barack Obama is a better president than Ronald Reagan was. I just have to prove that Reagan was not better than Obama. C1-Reagan’s Growth vs. Obama’s Growth As is well known, the economy suffered in the early years of the Reagan administration, only to see strong growth for the rest of it. Many say the growth was due to supply side economics; however, I’m going to prove it was primarily due to the actions of the Federal Reserve and high government spending during the Reagan administrations. I will also show why growth under Obama is due to similar purposes, but why he is a more fiscally responsible president. As can be seen, one thing that cannot be denied is that both presidents saw a net unemployment rate drop from when they entered office. As can be noted Reagan saw unemployment rate spike up early in his administration. This was not because of him, but due to the actions of the Federal Reserve. Inflation grew rapidly in the 70s’ and the Fed did what they could to drop the inflation rate. They were successful in doing so, but it led to really high interest rates. (2) With higher interest rates, it’s harder to see economic growth, so it led to a recession. However, once the Fed dropped the interest rates, unemployment began to drop again. In the May of 1987 the unemployment rate was at 6.3%. (1) That means it had dropped 1.2% since Reagan entered office. Some may say the reason the unemployment rate dropped so much was because of Supply Side Economics. Reagan did cut income taxes; however, he eliminated many tax breaks, introduced the largest peacetime tax increase (TEFRA), and increased taxes on Social Security, gasoline, capital gains, among other things. (3, 4) Overall, federal tax receipts under his presidency were 18.2% of GDP, barely any different than under the previous administration and were 24.7% of the national income by the end of his presidency (barley lower from the 25.1% it had been at). (3-4) One thing that also went against SSE rhetoric, was he dramatically increased spending. The most notable spending increase was on the huge military buildup, but he also increased spending in many other areas such as in the Department of Education & Energy. (3) Overall, he ran a larger deficit than the previous administrations for most of his presidency. (5) Obama has also seen a greater increase is in the stock market. Examining this chart: (10) We can see although both have seen a greater increase in the stock market under their administrations, Obama has seen much better increases. Growth in the stock market can lead to long term growth. Overall, we can see that Obama’s policies took a country suffering from the worst economic state since the Great Depression and brought it back to its feet. Meanwhile, Reagan, although did stimulate the economy had a lot of his growth result from the Federal Reserve and ran large deficits throughout most of his presidency. Plus, Obama has seen the stock market improve much more than Reagan. Both presidents saw better growth, however, it is clear that Obama had to have more responsibility due to the Great Recession and managed to cut deficits too. Therefore, Obama is a better president economically than Reagan. Everything posted after this is rushed. These points will be stronger when I respond to Pro's responses. C2-Healthcare: Obama has managed to introduce historical legislation which Reagan never did. Obama introduced a healthcare legislation, more similar to those in other developed nations such as Canada & many European nations. It has also overall been a success too, as it has increased the health insurance for millions of Americans, which saves lives, money, and can act as less of a burden on businesses. (11) Plus it has found to be even cheaper than originally expected and has not prevented the deficit from dropping. (11) C3-Foreign Policy: May things here can be addressed next round when I rebut Pro’s arguments, as most of Reagan’s actions have had to do with the Cold War, so I’ll just bring up a few points. Reagan funded and supplied chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein, who later became an American enemy, to invade Iran and start the Iran-Iraq War. (12-13) This among other things was a major blow to American-Iranian relations which are just starting to improve under President Obama. (14) Reagan also funded the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. (13) However, this terrorist group ended up launching the largest foreign attack on American soil, on September 11th on 2001. Their leader Bin Laden (whom Reagan funded) then continued to live through a whole administration until he was finally killed under Obama. Overall, Reagan’s foreign policy is still causing problems today, many of which Obama has solved. Conclusion: As seen through Obama's economic success compared to Reagan's, his healthcare reform, and his foreign policy compared to Reagan's, Reagan was not a better presdent than Obama. Sources: 1 http://data.bls.gov... 2 http://madashelland.com... 3 https://mises.org... 4 http://money.cnn.com... 5 https://www.cbo.gov... 6 http://www.forbes.com... 7 www.commondreams.org/views/2011/07/10/reagan-mythology-leading-us-cliff 8 http://www.investopedia.com... 9 http://www.igmchicago.org... 10 http://www.forbes.com... 11 http://www.nytimes.com... 12 http://www.nytimes.com... 13 http://www.liveleak.com... 14 http://www.forbes.com...