This book is available for checkout at the Worth County Partnership Library, located on the south side of the school. Hours are weekdays from 1:30-5:30 and when Worth County R-III is in session.
"Tip and The Gipper" is a book by MSNBC's Chris Matthews about two formidable political antagonists -- Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill and Republican President Ronald Reagan. Now, Matthews is an institution at MSNBC, the 24 hour news network competing with CNN and FOX News. But this is also, in a sense, a book about how Chris Matthews became one of the most recognizable faces on TV news today.
Matthews was, at one point, a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter during his losing 1980 Presidential campaign against Reagan. When Carter lost by a landslide and the GOP swept into power in the Senate, Tip O'Neill went from being a formidable backroom dealer to the most recognizable face of the Democratic opposition. Chris Matthews got a job with the Speaker following Carter's defeat and rose to become Tip's right-hand man and had a front-row seat for a battle between two men who were made for each other. His experience in being a part of these titanic political battles helped him to become a giant in the news business after he left the House.
Both Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill had a common Irish heritage, which allowed them to form a fast friendship. But that did not stop the two men from going for each other's throats during the important political battles of the day -- nuclear arms, the Cold War, taxes, the budget, welfare, and Social Security, among others. Yet out of those battles, as Matthews notes, came some important legislation that was done for the good of the country. Reagan got historic tax cut reform that slashed the highest income tax rate to 28%. Yet Tip was able to rescue a tottering Social Security system and keep it going for a good long time to come, with the help of Reagan and Bob Dole, afterwards a candidate for President. And Tip's support was crucial to Reagan achieving a historic nuclear arms reduction treaty with the Soviet Union, whom Reagan once called the "evil empire."
As Matthews recounts, both men came from a working class background and both formed strong political beliefs based on their own personal experience. Tip grew up in Massachusetts, under the shadow of Harvard; from that experience, he learned to fight for opportunities for all people in this country, not just the select few. And he never forgot his lesson from the first time he ran for office and lost; he learned the value of one on one politics. He never lost another election. Reagan moved out west, where he became a successful actor. His beliefs were also formed from personal experience; for instance, he did not want to do more than two movies a year, because that would have propelled him into the 90% tax bracket. And Reagan became disillusioned at what he saw as the heavy-handed tactics of certain union factions while he was involved with the actors' unions.
Neither man was without their flaws. Ronald Reagan campaigned on eliminating the deficit by 1984, yet thanks to his insistence on bankrupting the Soviet Union through the nuclear arms race, he wound up running larger deficits than all his predecessors combined. But later history has shown that this reliance on deficit spending and dependence on the military industrial complex has become an addiction, with future presidents of both parties continuing the pattern of massive deficit spending and expensive weapons systems. Tip O'Neill, despite being one of the early opponents of the Vietnam War in the 1960's, still held the common belief that politics stops at the water's edge. This led, according to Matthews, to Tip acting against his better judgment in supporting Ronald Reagan's sending of troops to Lebanon. The result was a quagmire and a terrorist bombing which left over 200 of our servicemen dead in Lebanon. Luckily, Reagan knew when to cut his losses and withdraw our troops before things got worse. But later history has shown that this belief that politics stops at the water's edge leads to situations like Iraq and Afghanistan, which both resulted in the loss of thousands of our troops and long drawn-out wars lasting years.
But Matthews writes in his book that both Tip and The Gipper were men who were both frequently wrongly underestimated. The common belief during the 1980 campaign season was that Ronald Reagan would be the easiest man to beat for Jimmy Carter because his views were farther to the right than the other GOP candidates. The common belief in 1981 after Reagan was sworn in was that Tip O'Neill was about to retire and was washed out politically. Both beliefs were way out in left field as the best days of both men were still ahead of them despite both men being in their 70's. "Tip and The Gipper" takes the reader along for the ride.
Our political system is set up in such a way that no one group of people can have all the power. Like today, factions on both the right and left regularly accused Reagan and O'Neill respectively of selling them out by cutting deals with the other side. But Matthews' thesis is that this sort of dealmaking is necessary in order for our government to function even when both sides are ideologically polarized. And as "Tip and The Gipper" notes, battles over raising the debt ceiling are nothing new; one of Ronald Reagan's first challenges as President was to get a debt ceiling raise through the Democratic House.
Showing posts with label Ronald Reagan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ronald Reagan. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Opinion: Taxes under Obama Lower than Under Reagan
by Daily Kos
First, the facts (.xls) [provided by the White House]:
First, the facts (.xls) [provided by the White House]:
Second, the punchline:During Ronald Reagan's presidency, total federal tax revenue as a percentage
of GDP averaged 18.2%, reaching a low point of 17.3% in 1984.
During Barack
Obama's presidency, total federal tax revenue as a percentage of GDP has
averaged 14.9% and is projected to drop to 14.4% in 2011.
The fact is, one of our biggest fiscal challenges is that taxes are too low, yet not only do these guys refuse to even consider raising them, they never get tired of denying the plain reality that we have historically low taxes. Perhaps if they acknowledged that simple fact, then they'd have to admit that taxes aren't the problem: underinvestment is.GOP members engaged in a lot of “eye-rolling” according to a member who was
on hand to hear Obama, who invited House Republicans to the White House for
discussions on the debt ceiling. The White House and Republicans are trying to
reach a deal on spending cuts that could allow the $14.3 debt ceiling to be
raised.
“(The President) made a comment like the tax rate is the lightest,
even more than (former President Ronald) Reagan,” Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) told
The Hill following the meeting.
House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) joked that during the meeting,
“We learned we had the lowest tax rates in history … lower than
Reagan!”
Opinion: Where Have All the Cold Warriors Gone?
Where Have All the Cold Warriors Gone?
By Dr. R.B.A. Di Muccio
It was 24 years ago, in June 1987, that Ronald Reagan gave his famous speech calling on Mikhail Gorbachev to “Tear down this wall.” In 1990, a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the foundations that had undergirded world politics for decades were likewise crumbling, John Mearsheimer penned his celebrated article: “Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War.” In the years since, the article has come to embody a specific, nostalgic lament. Yet, viewing Mearsheimer through the prism of today’s circumstances, one must ask: is it really the Cold War that we miss?
It’s important to clarify that Mearsheimer’s piece is not exactly what many caricaturize it to be. Notably, the article is focused, to the exclusion of all else, on the dynamics of security and stability in Europe after the collapse of the Soviet empire. What the Cold War had given Europe, Mearsheimer argued, was a cure for the “untamed anarchy” that had plagued the continent for so many centuries. With that ballast eroding away, you’d likely see the resurrection of old interstate rivalries and quite possibly nuclear proliferation in the region. In the end, whether we got the old Europe of constant warring or a nuclearized Europe with a problematic multi-polar deterrence, we would almost certainly “miss the Cold War.”
Looking back on it, the utter Euro-centrism in Dr. Mearsheimer’s most famous (or infamous) piece of writing seems positively quaint. That’s a point that has been made often. Critics have been unrelenting.
What’s even more striking, though, is how Mearsheimer could have been so right for such wrong reasons.
We do certainly miss the Cold War, but not because Europe, in the intervening years, has reverted to its 18th-century self. It obviously hasn’t. No, the reasons are very different from those anticipated by Mearsheimer.
The comparison of today’s circumstances to those of the Cold War has taken on an unexpected tone. This is because much that has occurred in the last couple decades has superficially confirmed a liberal myth which has mollified liberal sensibilities.
The myth is that the world in which we live today is—by orders of magnitude—more vexing and dynamic than at any time during the Cold War. Today, it is said, the actors and issues are far more complex than those of the past. So, the clarity of purpose and the unanimity of cause enjoyed during the Cold War are but faint memories in today’s world of twitter-fed revolutions, small-group led geopolitical transformations, crisscrossing political identities, and so many shades of moral gray all around. In short, Cold War politics were relatively straightforward compared to the confusing, inchoate mess that our leaders have to deal with today.
In truth, both sides of this characterization are straw men. The Cold War certainly did dominate world politics from the late 1940s through the early 1990s. This certainly did have the effect of focusing a great deal of the world’s attention on geopolitical struggles of the largest scale. But there were also many vagaries, conflicting values, confounding issues, differing identities, rising non-state actors, and complex domestic political issues aplenty. In other words, there was some intellectual room for U.S. presidents to decide not to fight the Cold War, or to at least hem and haw and equivocate. But only one—Jimmy Carter—really did.
Fast forward to today. Let’s concede that the world in 2011 is complex and dynamic. Let’s concede that we lack the simplicity of superpower bipolarity. But is it really all that unclear today what America’s existential struggle is all about? Is it really so difficult to determine who and what seeks our destruction and the obliteration of the very Western way of life? Do we really not have enough clarity to allow us to call the Fort Hood shooter an Islamic extremist and terrorist? Is there so much gray that we can’t reasonably call for congressional hearings focused on understanding the roots of homegrown Islamic extremism? Are we really so unsure of the threat facing us and the moral standing to confront it that we can’t even call the problem what it is?
One of my favorite quotes in Mearsheimer’s article is also its most ironic passage. While reviewing a litany of things that we will not miss about the Cold War, Mearsheimer predicted, “we will not wake up one day to discover fresh wisdom in the collected fulminations of John Foster Dulles.” Perhaps not. But remember this: Dulles advocated for the aggressive containment of communism at a time which also saw the rise of far left constituencies in America that sought to minimize the Soviet threat and undermine our very Cold War posture.
Alas, that gets to the crux of the issue.
Yes, we miss the Cold War. But what we miss far more are leaders who unabashedly trumpet American exceptionalism and who are willing to recognize a fundamental distinction between good and evil. The Cold War didn’t produce a nebulous, multi-cultural, politically correct, morally relativistic foreign policy, though it could have. Neither should the problems that face the country today. There’s no doubt about what America’s core threats are. We just need leaders who have the sense to eschew moral equivalency and face them.
So, in reality, it’s not the Cold War that we miss; just the Cold Warriors. We could use a little John Foster Dulles right now.
— Dr. R.B.A. Di Muccio is a guest commentator for The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. A former assistant professor and chair of the international relations program in the political science department at the University of Florida, he is now vice president of research and advisory services for a global business advisory firm. He received his Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Southern California.
By Dr. R.B.A. Di Muccio
It was 24 years ago, in June 1987, that Ronald Reagan gave his famous speech calling on Mikhail Gorbachev to “Tear down this wall.” In 1990, a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the foundations that had undergirded world politics for decades were likewise crumbling, John Mearsheimer penned his celebrated article: “Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War.” In the years since, the article has come to embody a specific, nostalgic lament. Yet, viewing Mearsheimer through the prism of today’s circumstances, one must ask: is it really the Cold War that we miss?
It’s important to clarify that Mearsheimer’s piece is not exactly what many caricaturize it to be. Notably, the article is focused, to the exclusion of all else, on the dynamics of security and stability in Europe after the collapse of the Soviet empire. What the Cold War had given Europe, Mearsheimer argued, was a cure for the “untamed anarchy” that had plagued the continent for so many centuries. With that ballast eroding away, you’d likely see the resurrection of old interstate rivalries and quite possibly nuclear proliferation in the region. In the end, whether we got the old Europe of constant warring or a nuclearized Europe with a problematic multi-polar deterrence, we would almost certainly “miss the Cold War.”
Looking back on it, the utter Euro-centrism in Dr. Mearsheimer’s most famous (or infamous) piece of writing seems positively quaint. That’s a point that has been made often. Critics have been unrelenting.
What’s even more striking, though, is how Mearsheimer could have been so right for such wrong reasons.
We do certainly miss the Cold War, but not because Europe, in the intervening years, has reverted to its 18th-century self. It obviously hasn’t. No, the reasons are very different from those anticipated by Mearsheimer.
The comparison of today’s circumstances to those of the Cold War has taken on an unexpected tone. This is because much that has occurred in the last couple decades has superficially confirmed a liberal myth which has mollified liberal sensibilities.
The myth is that the world in which we live today is—by orders of magnitude—more vexing and dynamic than at any time during the Cold War. Today, it is said, the actors and issues are far more complex than those of the past. So, the clarity of purpose and the unanimity of cause enjoyed during the Cold War are but faint memories in today’s world of twitter-fed revolutions, small-group led geopolitical transformations, crisscrossing political identities, and so many shades of moral gray all around. In short, Cold War politics were relatively straightforward compared to the confusing, inchoate mess that our leaders have to deal with today.
In truth, both sides of this characterization are straw men. The Cold War certainly did dominate world politics from the late 1940s through the early 1990s. This certainly did have the effect of focusing a great deal of the world’s attention on geopolitical struggles of the largest scale. But there were also many vagaries, conflicting values, confounding issues, differing identities, rising non-state actors, and complex domestic political issues aplenty. In other words, there was some intellectual room for U.S. presidents to decide not to fight the Cold War, or to at least hem and haw and equivocate. But only one—Jimmy Carter—really did.
Fast forward to today. Let’s concede that the world in 2011 is complex and dynamic. Let’s concede that we lack the simplicity of superpower bipolarity. But is it really all that unclear today what America’s existential struggle is all about? Is it really so difficult to determine who and what seeks our destruction and the obliteration of the very Western way of life? Do we really not have enough clarity to allow us to call the Fort Hood shooter an Islamic extremist and terrorist? Is there so much gray that we can’t reasonably call for congressional hearings focused on understanding the roots of homegrown Islamic extremism? Are we really so unsure of the threat facing us and the moral standing to confront it that we can’t even call the problem what it is?
One of my favorite quotes in Mearsheimer’s article is also its most ironic passage. While reviewing a litany of things that we will not miss about the Cold War, Mearsheimer predicted, “we will not wake up one day to discover fresh wisdom in the collected fulminations of John Foster Dulles.” Perhaps not. But remember this: Dulles advocated for the aggressive containment of communism at a time which also saw the rise of far left constituencies in America that sought to minimize the Soviet threat and undermine our very Cold War posture.
Alas, that gets to the crux of the issue.
Yes, we miss the Cold War. But what we miss far more are leaders who unabashedly trumpet American exceptionalism and who are willing to recognize a fundamental distinction between good and evil. The Cold War didn’t produce a nebulous, multi-cultural, politically correct, morally relativistic foreign policy, though it could have. Neither should the problems that face the country today. There’s no doubt about what America’s core threats are. We just need leaders who have the sense to eschew moral equivalency and face them.
So, in reality, it’s not the Cold War that we miss; just the Cold Warriors. We could use a little John Foster Dulles right now.
— Dr. R.B.A. Di Muccio is a guest commentator for The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. A former assistant professor and chair of the international relations program in the political science department at the University of Florida, he is now vice president of research and advisory services for a global business advisory firm. He received his Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Southern California.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Capitol Report for February 9th, 2011
Strengthening Our Democracy
At the cornerstone of a strong democracy is an engaged electorate. The primary responsibility of this electorate is to hold their elected officials accountable, thereby ensuring that their elected officials represent those who voted them into office. Unfortunately, there are times when out of touch politicians lose sight of this fact. They stop interacting with everyday people which leads to special interests and political whims guiding their decision making. When this occurs, our democracy is weakened as our government starts working for special interests instead of the people’s interest.
Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of former President Ronald Reagan. Reagan believed deeply that our liberty and freedom transcended partisan politics. He believed that “We the people” should tell government what to do, and not the other way around. He believed that in order for our country to be great, the electorate must push forward in pursuit of our goals and demand that our government acts accordingly on our behalf.
Reagan also believed that the best decisions are locally made decisions, and if decisions were going to be made somewhere other than locally, it should only be done after receiving great input from those who would be impacted. This is one of the reasons I believe it is so important to remain closely connected with those who have sent me to Jefferson City to fight on their behalf. While I work hard to bring the attention of state lawmakers to northwest Missouri so that they understand our opportunities and challenges, there is nothing more impactful then when ordinary people from our part of the state come and share their thoughts and beliefs.
A democracy will only remain strong if citizens are actively involved in the political and legislative processes. Now more than ever, we need hard working Missouri citizens holding our government accountable and demanding a government that works for them. It is time to put an end to the reckless governing that led to a record high national debt and a trampling of our liberties and freedoms. It is time that every level of government is reminded that our democracy and our country has been great and will continue to be great not because of big government programs but because of “We the People.”
As always, please feel free to call, email, or write with your ideas or concerns. The Capitol number is (573) 751-1415, my email is brad.lager@senate.mo.gov and my mailing address is Room 422, State Capitol Building, Jefferson City, MO 65101.
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