Ronald Reagan was a Better President than Barack Obama

Opening Note I would like to bring to the spectator"s awareness that my opponent has used almost all sources that are right-wing and conservative, which would of course support his argument that Reagan is a better president. While I, have made sure to find centered sources, despite the fact that I am arguing from a more left perspective. I find this to be immature and unfair. I discredit any facts cited from the Cato Institute, The Heritage Foundation, and extremely conservative writers. Barack Obama I. Economic Policy In response to your claim that Reagan entered his presidency during a much worse recession is again, not true. On what grounds are you claiming this as fact? You have no source to prove it and no evidence to say why. The job losses under Obama during the recession were far greater than anything Reagan experienced. Check out my credible and non-biased source, showing job losses for every year and month throughout history. You"ll have to put the starting year as 1981 or earlier to see the graph yourself. [1] "Those tax cuts under Reagan brought a faster recovery than Obama's demand-side strategy has been." Obama"s stimulus package was formed on the concept of keynesian economics and was comprised of targeted tax-cuts and direct government spending. It was proven to work. You are wrong. It has been proven, you can"t ignore facts. The fact that you think supply-side tax-cuts would have solved the problems we faced in 2008 shows your lack of knowledge about economics. Why would we approach two different problems with the same solution? Reagan dealt with high inflation, a problem we did not deal with this time around. The auto-bailout was not a weak response to the recession. It was successful beyond anyone"s expectations. How is saving possibly million of jobs a weak response? Google Finance was not wrong, it was your logic and findings that were inaccurate. I compared the increase of the Dow Jones to the day. It would be inaccurate to compare how much it increased under 8 years of Reagan, and only 5 years of Obama. Sorry that our source was confusing because you had to do the math yourself. II. Foreign Policy All I was trying to say about the death of Osama Bin Laden is that you cannot just push it aside. It was a huge accomplishment. "The problem with Obama and the embassy was that it wasn't the military, but his own State Department that was in charge." So, again, it is Obama"s fault that four Americans died, but not Reagan"s that 241 were killed? Reagan ordered the marines into the war-zone itself, then after 241 of them were killed, he pulled them out and accomplished nothing. How is that a leader? And we still haven"t mentioned all the American personnel who died at embassy bombings under Reagan"s tenure. Another one of Obama"s responsible moves as a leader can be seen as he withdraws our troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. The wars were bungled by his predecessor, and he inherited a mess. By the time he will leave office, he will have responsibly withdrawn from two unnecessary wars and brought home thousands of soldiers to their loved ones. Ronald Reagan I. Foreign Policy A great leader wouldn"t have 14 members of his administration indicted after illegally selling arms to Iran. This shows a lack of moral compass on Reagan and his administration, which does not make him a better president than Obama, who has had no real scandals outside the conservative echo chamber. [3] "Overall however, Ronald Reagan is responsible for the greatest victory in world history, more than World War 2 and World War 1 combined." Based on what, your personal opinion? Your over exuberance for the Cold War victory is unnecessary and not backed up with factual evidence. It"s hard to take someone seriously when you say things like the Cold War was the "greatest victory in world history." What ever happened to the American Revolution? We wouldn"t even be here having this debate if it weren"t for that. II. Economic Policy The claim that tax-cuts raised revenue overall is laughable and is apart of the voodoo economics that George Bush accused Reagan of. In response to Reagan"s tax cuts increasing revenue, Bruce Bartlett states, "In point of fact, this assertion is completely untrue. Federal revenues were $599.3 billion in fiscal year 1981 and were $991.1 billion in fiscal year 1989. That"s an increase of just 65 percent. But of course a lot of that represented inflation. If 1981 revenues had only risen by the rate of inflation, they would have been $798 billion by 1989. Thus the real revenue increase was just 24 percent. However, the population also grew. Looking at real revenues per capita, we see that they rose from $3,470 in 1981 to $4,006 in 1989, an increase of just 15 percent." [4] The idea that tax-cuts always pay for themselves seems to be a conservative lie that will never go away. My opponent engages in so much fact bending that it"s frustrating to try to debate someone who does not present arguments with true factual evidence. Unfortunately, I do not have enough room to argue more of my points, as I am too busy proving yours wrong. Sources 1. "Bureau of Labor Statistics." United States Department of Labor. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://data.bls.gov...;. 2. "National Data." U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.bea.gov...;. 3. "American Experience: TV's most-watched history series.." The Iran-Contra Affair PBS, n.d. <http://www.pbs.org...;. 4. Bartlett, Bruce. "No, Gov. Pawlenty, Tax Cuts Don't Pay for Themselves | The Fiscal Times." The Fiscal Times. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.thefiscaltimes.com...;.