Lukey
Senator
“I am just as opposed as Mr. Nixon to unbalanced budgets and centralized government. I do not believe that Washington should do for the people what they can do for themselves through local and private effort. There is no magic attached to tax dollars that have been to Washington and back. No expert in the nation's capital knows as much about your local problems and how to meet them as you do. Big government is just as much a threat to our liberties as too little government.”—John F. Kennedy, Campaign speech, October 1960
"We must answer here three fundamental questions: First, how do we make the American dream of opportunity for all a reality for all Americans who are willing to work for it? Second, how do we preserve our old and enduring values as we move into the future? And third, how do we meet these challenges together, as one America?
We know big Government does not have all the answers. We know there's not a program for every problem. We know, and we have worked to give the American people a smaller, less bureaucratic Government in Washington. And we have to give the American people one that lives within its means. The era of big Government is over." —William J. Clinton, State of the Union Address, January 1996
"Now, let me say this. It’s fashionable among some pundits -- and this happens every time America hits a rough patch -- it’s fashionable to be saying, well, this time it’s different, this time we really are in the soup; it’s going to be hard to solve our problems. Let me tell you something. What’s missing is not big ideas. What’s missing is not that we’ve got an absence of technical solutions to deal with issues like education or energy or our deficit. The problem we’ve got right now is we’ve just got a stalemate in Washington.
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”—Barack H. Obama, Campaign Speech, July 2012
So there you have it. The two modern era Democratic Presidents with the best economic records did not push big government as the solution to all our problems, but rather extolled the benefits of a strong private economy. The current Democratic President feels the opposite, that DC pols and bureaucrats have all the solutions and central planning is essential to economic opportunity. And we have suffered the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression. Coincidence? I think not...
"We must answer here three fundamental questions: First, how do we make the American dream of opportunity for all a reality for all Americans who are willing to work for it? Second, how do we preserve our old and enduring values as we move into the future? And third, how do we meet these challenges together, as one America?
We know big Government does not have all the answers. We know there's not a program for every problem. We know, and we have worked to give the American people a smaller, less bureaucratic Government in Washington. And we have to give the American people one that lives within its means. The era of big Government is over." —William J. Clinton, State of the Union Address, January 1996
"Now, let me say this. It’s fashionable among some pundits -- and this happens every time America hits a rough patch -- it’s fashionable to be saying, well, this time it’s different, this time we really are in the soup; it’s going to be hard to solve our problems. Let me tell you something. What’s missing is not big ideas. What’s missing is not that we’ve got an absence of technical solutions to deal with issues like education or energy or our deficit. The problem we’ve got right now is we’ve just got a stalemate in Washington.
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”—Barack H. Obama, Campaign Speech, July 2012
So there you have it. The two modern era Democratic Presidents with the best economic records did not push big government as the solution to all our problems, but rather extolled the benefits of a strong private economy. The current Democratic President feels the opposite, that DC pols and bureaucrats have all the solutions and central planning is essential to economic opportunity. And we have suffered the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression. Coincidence? I think not...
