Obama vs. Reagan

As we have finally reached Inauguration Day 2009, I look at the things that President Obama has proposed over the campaign and in these weeks leading up to the inauguration. Given a slowing economy and rising unemployment, he has proposed new government programs to give people jobs. He has proposed tax cuts and rebates for people who already do not carry a tax burden. He would like for us, as Americans, to rely on the government to fix the problems we face. Apparently, he thinks that we, as individuals, are capable of righting the ship, of turning things around, of returning America to the place of prominence that we have been for such a long time. We should rely on inept government bureaucratic agencies to pull us out of a short-term economic slide. To President Obama, government is the solution.

I would like to compare this to the Inaugural address given by President Ronald Reagan at his first inauguration in January, 1981. I heard this speech on C-Span yesterday. I was impressed by his down to earth approach. He was going to be the leader of the free world. He was taking over a country that was facing high unemployment and double-digit inflation. There was punitive taxation on those who were successful. It was definitely a worse economic environment than what we face today. There were hostages in Iran. There was an ongoing Cold War with the Soviet Union. There was a declining sense of American exceptionalism. Yet Reagan new the answer was in the American people, not the government, to solve these problems.

While I encourage you to read the full text of the speech, I would like for you to see some excerpts of this wonderful speech.

"...government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?"

"We hear much of special interest groups. Well, our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines...They are, in short, "we the people," this breed called Americans."

"We are a nation that has a government--not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed."

"...it's not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work--work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it."

"If we look to the answer as to why for so many years we achieved so much, prospered as no other people on earth, it was because here in this land we unleashed the energy and individual genius of man to a greater extent than has ever been done before. Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been more available and assured here than in any other place on earth."

"It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government. It is time for us to realize that we're too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams...I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing."

"As for the enemies of freedom, those who are potential adversaries, they will be reminded that peace is the highest aspiration of the American people. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it; we will not surrender for it, now or ever. Our forbearance should never be misunderstood. Our reluctance for conflict should not be misjudged as a failure of will. When action is required to preserve our national security, we will act. We will maintain sufficient strength to prevail if need be, knowing that if we do so we have the best chance of never having to use that strength. Above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."

"The crisis we are facing today...does require, however, our best effort and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds, to believe that together with God's help we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us. And after all, why shouldn't we believe that? We are Americans."

I am sure we will not here this from our new President.