Balanced Budgets and entitlements.

Our country has had it's ups and downs in our 226 years but we seem to learn nothing from our past. We have had liberals and conservatives alike propose directions for our country and have tried both paths MANY times and yet somehow we do not believe the result.  Let us look at Modern America from 1960-today. In 1960 the top tax bracket was 90% The middle calss was thriving business was thriving and our economy was good a Republican Named Eisenhower was leaving office with a Balanced budget and very little national debt and the Great Depression was far in the rear view mirror.

He was an advocate of peace despite being a military man, and was an advocate for unions and organized labor.
He was also the first Modern Republican, before Eisenhower most republicans were liberals and most democrats were conservatives. These two switched places at this point in history as segregation was ended and the parties took on new mantras.


We then elected John Kennedy a liberal Democrat also the first Catholic president. He was a staunch supporter of equal rights, He wished America to resume its old mission as the first nation dedicated to the revolution of human rights. With the Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps, he brought American idealism to the aid of developing nations. But the hard reality of the Communist challenge remained. He also stood VERY strong in the cold war stopping Russia from basing missiles in Cuba. His economic policy was to SPEND on infrastructure and keep America MOVING. Our economy stood strong until his assassination.

Lyndon Johnson who was vice president to Kennedy then became president.




In 1964 Johnson won his bid to continue in the whitehouse by an overwhelming margin with 61% of the vote the largest margin in history at that point.

The Great Society program became Johnson's agenda for Congress in January 1965: aid to education, attack on disease, Medicare, urban renewal, beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions, a wide-scale fight against poverty, control and prevention of crime and delinquency, removal of obstacles to the right to vote. Congress, at times augmenting or amending, rapidly enacted Johnson's recommendations. Millions of elderly people found succor through the 1965 Medicare amendment to the Social Security Act.

All this spending and yet when he left office we had a balanced budget lower taxes and more benefits to those who needed them.


Then Came Richard Nixon,


Now here we have a true conservative republican appointing conservative justices to the supreme court, standing strong in negotiations with Russia and China, Tackling environmental issues and helping put the first man on the moon. Nixon was NOT a bad president but, it was during his presidency that HMO's were created undermining the great society. HMO's were to be publicly traded insurance companies that would cover the cost of health care for the general populous. This started un down a VERY slippery slope allowing your medical care to be decided by a company that had to show profitability to its shareholders was NOT a good idea. Then came Watergate and a big debate about presidential powers. He resigned rather than continue fighting what had become some of the most watched senate hearings in history, the watergate hearings. What also needs to be pointed out is that taxes were again lowered during his presidency and our national debt began to rise. The debt limit was raised 5 times during the Nixon administration.

This gave us Gerald Ford.

When Ford took office mid term he had a problem the conservative fiscal policies of Nixon had depressed the economy and inflation was rising. Ford began the usual tax cutting that republicans swear will help a bad economy but it did not work so began a stimulus plan that did and our economy started to get better but he worried that debt was becoming a big issue in America and wanted us to lower our deficits however they grew during his term.

Then came Jimmy Carter

A mis-remembered president most conservatives will tell you "Carter was the worst president we ever had"
but nothing could be farther from the truth, Carter inherited an inflation problem brought on by deregulation of the energy industry since energy prices were skyrocketing the cost of everything was increasing rapidly too.
Carter could point to a number of achievements in domestic affairs. He dealt with the energy shortage by establishing a national energy policy and by decontrolling domestic petroleum prices to stimulate production. He prompted Government efficiency through civil service reform and proceeded with deregulation of the trucking and airline industries. He sought to improve the environment. His expansion of the national park system included protection of 103 million acres of Alaskan lands. To increase human and social services, he created the Department of Education, bolstered the Social Security system, and appointed record numbers of women, blacks, and Hispanics to Government jobs.  
In the Middle East, through the Camp David agreement of 1978, he helped bring amity between Egypt and Israel. He succeeded in obtaining ratification of the Panama Canal treaties. Building upon the work of predecessors, he established full diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and completed negotiation of the SALT II nuclear limitation treaty with the Soviet Union.
By the end of his administration, he could claim an increase of nearly eight million jobs and a decrease in the budget deficit, Then came the Iranian hostage situation coupled with war in Afghanistan (The Russian invasion)

These two issues ultimately led to Carter's defeat By Ronald Reagan

Another mis-remembered president.

To be continued tomorrow.