Ronald Reagan was a Better President than FDR

My CasePresident Ronald ReaganParty: RepublicanIn Office: 1981 to 1989Now its time to win one more for the gipper!I. Economic PolicyThe United States of America was in a terrible economic recession in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Unpopular Democratic President Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan by a landslide in the 1980 presidential election. Reagan had several problems in the economy:Unemployment: 7.2%Inflation: 12%Interest Rates: 20%Total Government Revenue: -2.8%Real GDP Growth: 0.9%After Reagan's Policies:Unemployment: 5.5%Inflation: 4.4%Interest Rates: 9.3%Total Government Revenue: 3.5%Real GDP Growth: 4.8%So as we can see, the economy recovered from President Reagan's economic policies. [1,2] What were these policies? Tax cuts across the board! Reagan's tax cuts dropped the highest marginal tax rates by 25% and the capital gains tax by 20%. Investment funding boomed! This was especially clear in the technology sector. As Mr. Cain and Mr. Lowrie put it:"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.Mr. Cain and Mr. Lowrie goes on to discuss the government deregulation of the telecommunications sector which gave us competitive services, cable television, and advent wireless communication. So if you any of you are looking at this on an Apple or Microsoft computer remember that President Reagan played a key role the technology we have today. [1]The term for his policies is well known: supply-side economics. The theory here is that less regulation, less taxes, and less government spending and intervention leads to a more wealthy nation. This is because the three factors I have mentioned allow a more capitalist free market which create competition between businesses and causes them to lower prices to get the most profit. They expand supply to sell their products. People would then be able to buy more items and create economic growth. If people prefer to save money, then that expands the nation's loan capacity which helps entrepreneurs. [1,2,3]According to the Heritage Foundation:"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." [4]The Heritage Foundation 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. [4]In the CATO study:"On 8 of the 10 key economic variables examined, the American economy performed better during the Reagan yearsthan during the pre- and post-Reagan years." [5]Some of these variables not discussed yet include:1. Real median income, which grew by $4,000 under the Reagan years.2. Economic growth average 3.2% under Reagan, 2.8% under Ford and Carter, and 2.1% under Bush Sr. and Clinton.3. In employment, 17 million new jobs were produced. Obviously, President Reagan's economic record is strong.II. Cold WarNow let's move on to one of the president's greatest achievements: defeating the USSR. According to Armchair General magazine (a military history magazine that I subscribe to), in their November 2012 issue, which included a section on President Reagan's Cold War, there were three factors that led to the downfall of the USSR.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 them 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 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." [2,6]President: Franklin D. RooseveltParty: DemocratPresidency: 1933 to 1945I. All Aboard the Fail Deal!: FDR's Economic PolicyPresident Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected in 1933 in hope of ending the Great Depression. His policies would not just fail, but actually prolong 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. [7] Watch the video. Out of characters.II. Packing the Supreme Court and Locking Up the JapaneseDo I even have to go into this? Everyone has to know these two infamous stories. The first is that FDR got tired of the Supreme Court stopping some of his legislation that he wanted to add new justices to them ($10 says they would have been liberals). The second is during WW2 when he locked up Japanese civlians in the US fearing they may help the enemy.Sources1. Cain, Herman and Rich Lowrie. 9-9-9 An Army of Davids. 2012.2. Gaffney, Dennis and Peter Gaffney. The Seven Day-Scholar: The Presidents. 2012.3. http://en.wikipedia.org...4. http://www.heritage.org...5. Niskanen, William and Stephen Moore. Cato Institute Policy Analysis No. 261:Supply-Side Tax Cuts and the Truth about the Reagan Economic Record. 1996.6. Morelock, Jerry D. "Ronald Reagan's Cold War." Armchair General IX.5 (2012): 18-19. 7. Higgs, Robert. "How FDR Made the Depression Worse." The Free Market XIII.2 (1995)http://www.youtube.com...