OPINION:
President Zero. The brand-new nickname for Barack Obama symbolizes America’s total net jobs created in August: Zippo. So, how many jobs emerged in August 1983, the analogous point in Ronald Wilson Reagan’s presidency? The figure was 280,000. Proportional to today’s population, that would equal 367,360 new hires.
Citizens pondering President Obama’s jobs speech and how to get America working again should focus on today’s great experiment. Ronald Reagan’s supply-side mixture of tax cuts, deregulation and sound money competes directly against Mr. Obama’s big-government blend of Keynesian stimuli, rampant red tape and promiscuous printing of money - as if dollars were wallpaper. The late Reagan trounces the leisurely Mr. Obama.
Reagan’s Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 slashed the top federal income-tax rate from 70 percent to 50 percent and sliced business levies. Today, it would cost $1.86 trillion. (For consistency, I converted all of the historical numbers into 2011 dollars. Meanwhile, Mr. Obama’s “stimulus,” formally called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, cost $829 billion.
Reagan deregulated America’s economy, as demonstrated by the relatively low 30,522 pages of rules added to the Federal Register in 1981 and 1982. Reagan continued President Carter’s loosening of restrictions on airlines, trucking and other industries. The 45,696 pages that swelled the Register in 2009 and 2010 reflect Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, EPA guidelines, pro-union favors and other regulations - atop Sarbanes-Oxley, farm programs, lighting standards, and other hurdles that Bush-Rove erected.
Confirming Reagan’s commitment to reliable currency and monetary restraint, gold’s price fell 33 percent - from $1,396.79 per ounce at Reagan’s Jan. 20, 1981, inauguration to $937.37 on Sept. 7, 1983. By converting the Bureau of Engraving and Printing into a veritable currency copy shop, Mr. Obama helped gold climb from $898.53 to $1,810 through Wednesday.
Reagan accelerated Mr. Carter’s deregulation of oil prices and encouraged domestic production, as underscored by gasoline’s 6.75 percent fall from $3.11 per gallon on Inauguration Day to $2.90 in late August 1983. Mr. Obama’s domestic-drilling limits and anti-carbon fetish helped gasoline climb 87 percent - from $1.93 when he arrived to $3.60 on Aug. 29.
The economic and political consequences of these conflicting visions are stunning.
At the 2 1/2-year mark (July 20, 1983) gross domestic product (GDP) under Reagan grew at 9.3 percent. Under Mr. Obama, GDP crawled forward last July 20 at 1 percent.
At that stage in Reagan’s presidency, nonfarm productivity blossomed at 9.6 percent. Under Mr. Obama, it shriveled at negative 0.7 percent.
After 2 1/2 years, unemployment under Reagan stood at 9.4 percent, down from a 10.8 percent recessionary peak. Under Mr. Obama, top joblessness of 10.1 percent has dropped to 9.1 percent, but seems stuck there. And the fact that America yielded zero net jobs last month (versus 280,000 in August 1983) confirms the bankruptcy of Obamanomics.
These respective developments swayed America’s mood. In August 1983 under Reagan, the Consumer Confidence Index sparkled at 90.2. Last month, under Mr. Obama, it flickered at 44.5.
An Aug. 8, 1983, Gallup survey found 35 percent of Americans “generally satisfied with things in the U.S.” and 59 percent “generally dissatisfied.” On Aug. 14, 2011, 11 percent were satisfied, while a whopping 88 percent were dissatisfied.
Progress earned Reagan 48 percent approval in a September 1983 Gallup survey, while Mr. Obama stood at 40 percent on Aug. 20. On managing the economy, ABC News documented Reagan’s 48 percent approval on May 18, 1983. On Sept. 1, ABC gauged Mr. Obama’s approval on economics at 36 percent.
Mr. Obama’s triumphs include last week’s dismissal of 1,100 workers at Solyndra, a now-defunct solar-panel manufacturer that he stimulated with a $535 million loan guarantee. Another program hatched 14 jobs and weatherized three Seattle homes. Cost: $20 million.
Ronald Reagan savored a landslide re-election in 1984, scoring 525 Electoral College votes to Democrat Walter Mondale’s 13. As Barack Obama crawls from the wreckage of his Keynesian vehicle, disappointed voters in November 2012 likely will make him hand the keys to an adult who knows how to drive.
Deroy Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with Stanford’s Hoover Institution.
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