Current day politicians could learn a lot from Calvin Coolidge.
Late last night Congress struck a budget deal. This has been a brutal process. The Democrats avoided passing a budget in 2010. It was an election year and the party lacked the courage to pass anything. The new budget isn’t perfect, but it’s an improvement over the past decade. In the grand scheme of things this budget does little to address the long term problems we face.
As I wrote yesterday liberals are completely clueless about the current fiscal nightmare. It’s laughable to see the left’s reaction to the compromise. The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein beleieve this miniscule cut will harm the economy.
Right now, the economy is weak. Giving into austerity will weaken it further, or at least delay recovery for longer. And if Obama does not get a recovery, then he will not be a successful president, no matter how hard he works to claim Boehner’s successes as his own. Clinton’s speeches were persuasive because the labor market did a lot of his talking for him. But when unemployment is stuck at eight percent, there’s no such thing as a great communicator.
The government has been running up debt for thirty years. If the government is the source of economic recovery why is the economy in the doldrums? Liberals suffer from this romantic idea that the government is the solution for every problem. How can we blame them? They all went to college and all they learned about economics is that FDR saved us in the Depression (BTW it’s a little more complicated).
It’s been three years of unprecedented spending by Obama and company and none of the meager growth the nation has experienced over the last six months can be attributed to the government. Calvin Coolidge once said that “the chief business of the American people is business.” This quote was used by New Deal historians to twist Coolidge’s legacy into a pro-business President who didn’t care about about Wall Street squashing the Forgotten Man. Coolidge gave that speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington, D.C. on January 17, 1925. Here is the last paragraph of the speech:
We make no concealment of the fact that we want wealth, but there are many other things that we want very much more. We want peace and honor, and that charity which is so strong an element of all civilization. The chief ideal of the American people is idealism. I cannot repeat too often that America is a nation of idealists. That is the only motive to which they ever give any strong and lasting reaction.
There is a cynicism on the left that believes that the individual person is unable to prosper without the help of the State. Statism is based on the idea that wealth isn’t created, but that it is gained at the expense of someone else. This isn’t an idealistic philosophy. In fact, wealth redistribution has been used all over the world for two centuries by totalitarians and tyrants. I have called the idea Utopian because it is an impossible outcome.
Wealth isn’t stolen. It’s created by the hard work and the magnificent imagination of individual people. Almost all of the big ideas of the last three centuries didn’t come from the government. Calvin Coolidge was right. Americans are idealistic. I am an idealist. The American ideal is that free individuals can govern themselves more efficiently that citizens controlled by the state.
What about large corporations? In most cases unchecked corporations arise from poor government regulation. The government has given us the rules for energy providers in the United States. The same could be said about telecommunications, airlines, banks, and farming. None of those are free markets. They’ve been regulated into corruption. Can someone please point me in the direction of a nation that has an ideal situation with corporations? Why do we think copying other nations is the key to success?
The American idea is the exception to the rule. The American left longs for the United States to adopt the long standing statue quo. The arguments are simple: “If we only had European health care.” “If we had a work like the French.” “If we only had cheap drugs like the Canadians.” These simple ideas overlook the fact that Americans have subsidized Western Europe’s way of life for a half century. It’s the American idealist who paid for Europe’s defense. It’s the American idealist who paid for Europe’s health care.
Tomorrow’s grand idea isn’t free health care or high speed rail. Free entitlements aren’t new ideas. They’re legislative candy given to citizens who no longer think for themselves. The State creates a citizenry that doesn’t look inwardly for solutions, but instead looks to the state for handouts. The grand idea is that there is no perfect form of government. Their is no fair system. Mankind is flawed. A strong State is a flawed state. The men who created our government weren’t perfect, but they understood these basic truths. The path to prosperity comes from the individual and not the government.
I’m not sure when it will happen. Maybe it will never happen, but somewhere a smart politician is reading the tea leaves. In order to rally the American people our next great leader will have to call on us all to step up and conquer our problems. I think it’s too late for Obama. He just doesn’t grasp it. He may end up being a two-term president, but he’s not prepared to tackle our problems.
All of America’s great leaders have summoned the courage of the American people to solve the nation’s problems. The government was an ally, not the sole solution. That’s why the government looks so bad after Katrina and the Oil spill. The government will never be prepared for these kinds of crises. It is the challenge of our citizens. That is the American spirit. The government didn’t solve the Great Depression. Slavery didn’t end until the blood of thousands of Americans was spilled. Segregation lasted until Americans took to the streets to protest the injustice.
These colors don't... apologize?
Calvin Coolidge once said that “Heroism is not only in the man, but in the occasion.” Today the occasion is upon us and it’s time we call upon the heroism of the American people. Let’s quit apologizing for being the nation that invented the telephone, air travel, and the light bulb. We have never been a nation of apologists. No nation is free from sin and it’s only those who are too weak to lead that wish to wallow in our imperfection. We’re a nation of inventors, entrepreneurs, and hard workers. That’s the spirit of the American people, and it’s the spirit our leaders fail to grasp.
C-Span released its annual presidential rankings, but I’m not sure how much stock to put in a list that ranks Lyndon B. Johnson 11th. How short are the memories of historians? Everyone agrees Vietnam was a disaster, and it happened under his watch. It was such a terrible policy that he couldn’t’ even seek his party’s nomination for president in 68, and that’s not even considering the trillions of dollars wasted on the War on Poverty. The fact that John F. Kennedy is ranked 6th is another shining example of ignorance. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs must be more important than creating the Constitution and fending of England in the War of 1812. The fact that American historians can’t even come up with a logical list is another indictment on our education system.
The most annoying part of this list is Calvin Coolidge. The American’s Left’s messiah-like devolution to the myth of the Great Depression has slandered one of the nation’s great presidents. The indoctrination is so complete that Coolidge is ranked below Jimmy Carter. Let’s face it, President Carter was a colossal failure. Coolidge presided over a massive economic expansion and didn’t get in the way. Unfortunately for Coolidge, he was replaced by the enormously popular Hoover, whose policies shifted the nation forever toward larger government.
Bill Clinton has jumped six spots. Clinton’s most significant achievements were NAFTA and welfare reform. The Democrat party has basically reversed welfare reform with the stimulus bill and they’re still against NAFTA. How exactly this puts Clinton above James Madison and John Adams is anyone’s guess. John Adams had a hit documentary on HBO and still managed to fall one spot. Maybe if schools taught more about the father of the Constitution and John Adams these idiot historians wouldn’t rank a disbarred, impeached sex addict over two of the nation’s founding fathers. Maybe if historians spent less time trying to prove that Lincoln was a depressed racist homosexual and more time on educating people on real American history more people could name more than 10 presidents.
Amity Shlaes’ The Forgotten Man is easily the most fascinating look back at the Great Depression I have ever read. The book is a breeze to read and serves as a refreshing look at the well intentioned policies that help prolong and strengthen the severity of the depression. The book starts in the twenties and reevaluates the myth of the “reckless twenties” that became the embodiment of the thirties propaganda. The center of the economic policy of that period was Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon who served the post for three presidents. The twenties were a boom period for business, much like this decade and the nineties.
President Coolidge’s pro-business policies fueled the economic growth of that period. The immensely popular Coolidge decided not to seek a third term and was replaced by Herbert Hoover. Hoover’s idea of economics were at odds with Mellon and the previous administration and when the stock market finally corrected in 1929 after inflated growth the President did everything wrong. Hoover raised taxes, tariffs, interest rates and turned a normal recession into the Great Depression.
Political change was inevitable in 1932 and once Roosevelt became President the poor economic policies continued. It’s easy to point the blame on Roosevelt, but I’m not sure there was any rational alternative. The Republicans at the time didn’t have any better ideas. They were far too prone to support the kind of isolationist policies that were helping compound the problem. The only decent candidate to run against Roosevelt was Wendell Willkie who ran in 1940. By that time the war was the number one issue and there’s no doubt that Roosevelt was a tremendous leader.
President Roosevelt’s administration also spent a great deal of time going after businesses and Wall Street. This war against the private sector ultimately made the Depression worse as well, eventually leading to Black Tuesday in 1938. The administration’s overzealous attack on Wall Street quelled investment and stopped growth. One example of the cluelessness of the administration was the price of Gold. When FDR was asked why he had sat the price of gold to twenty-one cents he replied “it’s a lucky number, because it’s three times seven.” This kind of daily meddling wasn’t uncommon and is an amazing insight into why the Depression is the greatest government blunder in our nation’s history.
Despite the gloom of the period the book is an inspirational look at the truly “forgotten men and women” of the depression. These heroes overcame one of the most difficult periods in our history despite the incompetence of government intervention. For too long people have debated why the Great Depression happened and ignored why it lasted so long. The answer to the last question is the answer to both. The differences between Hoover and Roosevelt were slight; however, Roosevelt helped calm the public. Ultimately the start of World War II ended the Depression and the anti-business and anti-trade policies of the thirties faded after 1940. It’s important for Americans to remember the mistakes made by the government during that period because they’re too easy to make again. On the Right, Isolationism in trade and in immigration policy is damaging. On the Left anti-big business and class warfare are equally disturbing. The Forgotten Man is a stark reminder of how both out dated ideologies got it wrong.
Recent Comments