Herbert Hoover

Political Experience, Public Office, And The Presidency

Ronald 1 Comment

One would think that to be President of the United States, one should have political and governmental experience, and have been voted into office by American citizens. That is, the Presidency is NOT a place to learn how government works, and experience of some type electorally is essential!

And yet, Herman Cain is running without ANY government credentials, and having never been elected to any office by any part of the American population!

What gall to think that he is qualified because he is a businessman, when government is NOT a business, and business experience is greatly overrated, and does not train one to run a government, on the scale that being in elective office DOES qualify someone to lead the American people!

The question arises as to how many Presidential candidates or Presidents have had no government electoral experience.

There have been two businessmen who ran for President–Wendell Willkie in 1940 as a Republican and Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996 as an Independent candidate for the White House. Both had a much more distinguished business career than Herman Cain could ever even dream of!

We have also had military generals who have run for office without political experience, with three being elected President–Zachary Taylor in 1848, Ulysses Grant in 1868 and 1872, and Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956, with only Eisenhower rated highly by scholars of the Presidency.

Three other generals ran and lost the Presidential race–Winfield Scott in 1852, George McClellan in 1864, and Winfield Scott Hancock in 1880.

Also, there were two cabinet members who never served in elective office, other than the Presidency–William Howard Taft in 1908 after serving as Secretary of War; and Herbert Hoover in 1928, after serving as Secretary of Commerce. But neither is rated very high among the Presidents.

So the best way to look at it is: If you wish to run for President and lead our nation, you MUST have electoral experience, particularly in the modern era when the job requires political experience as crucial, not business experience as head of a corporation whose only aim is PROFIT!

Seven Republican Presidents Who Raised Taxes On The Wealthy

Ronald 1 Comment

We are in the season of Republican Presidential candidates and the Republicans in the Congress railing against any rise in taxes on the wealthy, no matter how minor. Instead, we have the reckless, irresponsible proposals of Herman Cain and Rick Perry in recent days, which would LOWER taxes further on the wealthy and starve the government from being able to do anything other than defend the nation and pay the interest on the national debt, a totally insane proposition!

They claim they are following Republican tradition, but they are defying the facts of history.

Seven Republican Presidents raised taxes on the wealthy, and understood the need to do so, and the fairness of it.

Abraham Lincoln created the first federal income tax to finance the Civil War.

William Howard Taft endorsed the 16th Amendment, the federal progressive income tax, which became part of the Constitution at the end of his term in early 1913.

Herbert Hoover raised the top income tax rate from 24 to 63 percent in 1932, in the worst moments of the Great Depression.

Dwight D. Eisenhower argued for and succeeded in a top income tax rate over 90 percent during the 1950s, in order to help promote a balancing of the budget.

Richard Nixon raised the capital gains tax rate from 25 to 35 percent in 1969, and supported the concept of a minimum tax.

Gerald Ford signed legislation raising the minimum tax on the wealthy, and getting rid of some loopholes used by the wealthy to evade taxes.

Ronald Reagan supported the idea of capital gains being taxed as ordinary income, and raising taxes on corporations.

So it is a lie to say that Republicans historically have supported lowering of taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

The only effect of what the GOP promotes today is the DESTRUCTION of the federal government in a time when it is more needed than ever since the worst days of the Great Depression!

Presidential Styles: Interpersonal Relationships Important In Level Of Success!

Ronald Leave a comment

The American Presidency is a complex institution, with 43 men so far having occupied that office, and the personalities of the Presidents have a great deal to do with the level of success they achieve.

Many have been shy or withdrawn in dealings with others, including the public, the Congress, and the news media, which may surprise the average person, wondering how they were able to win election. Among this group would be included Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush.

Others had great capabilities as communicators, but somehow could not translate it into warm relationships with Congress, including Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and now clearly, Barack Obama.

Then, there were those who knew how to get what they wanted, including Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Ronald Reagan, keeping close in touch with Congressional leaders, charming them with White House meetings, including the opposition party!

And then there are those Presidents who don’t quite fit any of the above descriptions, including Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, and George W. Bush. All were unique in their skills and abilities, having some successes and some failures in office.

A recent Washington Post opinion piece called Obama a “loner” President who finds it difficult to make Congressional relationships, even with his own party, and not particularly liking people as individuals, and much better speaking to the nation as a whole. This could be seen as a shortcoming, which could undermine Obama’s attempt to win re-election!

But then, Obama’s Republican challengers, particularly Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and Herman Cain do not exactly engender a sense of warmth in dealing with others!

Rick Perry’s Assault On FDR’s New Deal: Unconscionable!

Ronald Leave a comment

The last time that a major party Presidential candidate went after the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt with such zeal as Texas Governor Rick Parry has done in his recent book and during his presidential campaign was Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater in the 1964 Presidential campaign, and anyone who knows political history knows that Goldwater suffered the worst percentage defeat ever to Lyndon B. Johnson, who went on to expand and improve on the New Deal with his Great Society.

Hopefully, the same scenario will happen if Rick Perry is Barack Obama’s opponent, and we will see Obama improve on Lyndon B Johnson, which he certainly has more than anyone since then, certainly more than Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton!

Perry not only has called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme”, even though it has always paid out for 75 years, and is well funded to 2037, and only needs a little tinkering to sustain itself into the long range future, similar to what it received in the famous Ronald Reagan-Tip O’Neill deal of 1983.

Perry also criticizes in his book “Fed Up”, published last year, all of the government agencies created during the New Deal, including three public works agencies that created worthwhile jobs during the New Deal (the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Public Works Administration, and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration); the nation’s agency to watch over the stock market and Wall Street (the Securities and Exchange Commission); an agency which took the American South out of dire poverty and provided electricity, which private enterprise had not done (the Tennessee Valley Authority); an agency started by President Herbert Hoover to help keep business afloat during the Great Depression and continued by FDR (the Reconstruction Finance Corporation); an agency which helped keep farmers going during the worst times in agricultural history (the Agricultural Adjustment Administration); and also a denial by Perry that the New Deal lowered the unemployment rate, which in actual fact went from 12-13 million at the beginning of 1933 to a little over 6 million in 1939!

Perry has utilized misrepresentation and misconceptions, and pure lies and demagoguery, while forgetting his own poverty stricken past! Is there anything worse than pure hypocrisy and deception in the name of his corporate masters, who support his campaign for President?

The “Learned” Presidents: Men Of Great Intellect!

Ronald Leave a comment

In today’s America, we see glorification of presidential candidates who comes across as lacking in knowledge and insights, people who represent ignorance of history and science, who are seen as the “average American”, as if that is what we need in the White House! What else explains Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum and others who are constantly displaying their lack of intellect?

In the past, we had our share of ignorant Presidents, but we also had a great number of “learned” Presidents, one out of three, who made the office proud with their intellect and insights. It did not, of course, guarantee success in all of their activities as President, but we could feel satisfied that we had brilliant men who represented a model of what America should strive for: intellectual curiosity and inquiry and desire for learning, something looked down upon today, a very regrettable development.

So who are the “learned” Presidents?

John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
John Quincy Adams
James Garfield (more potentially, because of assassination within months of taking the oath of office)
Theodore Roosevelt
William Howard Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Herbert Hoover
Richard Nixon
Jimmy Carter
Bill Clinton
Barack Obama

The debate about the connection between intellect and success will go on, as it is well known that there is considerable debate about the effectiveness and success of Madison, Taft, Hoover, Nixon, and Carter, at the least. And many would debate Wilson and Clinton as well.

But this list demonstrates, if nothing else, that we have some “scholars” in the White House, and that we should want the “best and the brightest” in the Oval Office, to set a model for the nation and its future!

The 87th Birthday of Jimmy Carter: A Look Back At His Much Maligned Presidency!

Ronald Leave a comment

Today is the 87th birthday of former President Jimmy Carter, and it is proper to send good wishes to him!

By reaching the age of 87, and in good health, Carter becomes the seventh President to reach that advanced age, with former President George H. W. Bush having reached that pinnacle on June 12 of this year.

Other than the first Bush, only Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan (both 93), John Adams and Herbert Hoover (both 90) and Harry Truman (88) have lived longer.

Jimmy Carter has also had a longer retirement after his Presidency than anyone except Herbert Hoover, and will pass him in longevity in retirement in less than a year, on September 8, 2012.

Jimmy Carter has been much ridiculed, lambasted, and condemned by his critics, and this post is not an attempt to deny the weaknesses and mistakes of his Presidency. Carter has learned how to accept the reality that he is shown little respect for his virtues and accomplishments, with a lot of it due to his defeat for reelection in 1980 by the charismatic Ronald Reagan, who is often now seen as a deity in many circles. There is the reality that IF a President loses reelection, his reputation in history suffers dramatically, no matter what he had achieved in office.

But while there is much controversy over Carter’s Presidency, on his birthday, it is worth it to point out his major successes in office.

1. Carter was able to negotiate the impossible–an agreement between Egypt and Israel, the Camp David Accords, which brought peace, recognition, and security for Israel for the past third of a century.

2. Carter also negotiated the Panama Canal Treaty, much berated at the time, and causing loss of seats for the Democrats and assisting the conservative takeover, but in retrospect, one realizes that the treaty was not harmful and against our national security, but actually helped to improve relations with Latin America, and is now seen as non controversial a third of a century later.

3. Carter’s promotion of human rights as a major foreign policy goal was ridiculed by conservatives and Ronald Reagan, but later it turned out that future Presidents, all of them, utilized the concept in some form as part of their foreign policy goals.

4. Carter made us aware of the energy crisis, and the need to expand energy resources beyond oil, and while it has not been pursued as he emphasized by later Presidents, it is clear that Carter was correct in his emphasis on alternative sources of energy being essential for America’s future.

5. Jimmy Carter had the best one term environmental record of any President, greatly expanding national parks and forest land, and focusing on the environment as an issue in a very admirable manner.

6. Carter appointed more minorities to appointed positions than any President before him, and fully backed affirmative action, which became a controversy during his Presidency due to the Bakke case.

7. Three new cabinet agencies were started during his Presidency, although now under attack by conservatives in 2011–Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Energy.

8. Carter presided over the smallest increase in the national debt during his administration, attempting to have very tightly negotiated budgets, although all were with deficits.

9. Carter issued an executive order on his first day in office, granting amnesty to Vietnam draft evaders, which however caused a rift with military supporters who opposed this courageous act.

10. Carter negotiated the SALT 2 (Strategic Arms Limitation) Treaty with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, which was never ratified by the US Senate because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but its details were obeyed by both sides despite the rejection of the agreement in the Senate.

It would be easy to list the faults and shortcomings of Jimmy Carter, and as the years go by, and eventually Carter passes from the scene, there will be much more research done on him and his Presidency. When that happens, it is likely that a reassessment of Carter in a much more sympathetic manner, will occur.

For now, Mr. President, Happy Birthday and many more!

Michele Bachmann Pledges $2 Gasoline If She Is President: Yeh, Sure!

Ronald 1 Comment

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has been making a total fool of herself to anyone who has any brains or common sense!

She has made the most stupid, idiotic, statements imaginable about all kinds of subject and topics, making intelligent people’s eyes roll!

But now she has REALLY accomplished her all time greatest blunder ever: a campaign pledge that when she is President, gasoline will be below $2 a gallon!

Michele Bachmann apparently thinks that she can control the world’s oil prices, the oil cartel and the oil companies! She has no understanding of basic economics, and yet she is going to produce miracles! This woman is a raving maniac, hallucinating to the extreme, in her belief apparently that her so called connection to God is going to bring back $2 gasoline, which will NEVER occur!

This is a greater pledge than Herbert Hoover promising in 1928 to end poverty in America, and that every American would have two chickens in every pot, two cars in every garage! It is greater than Ronald Reagan saying he would balance the budget by the end of his first term, 1984! It is greater than Richard Nixon promising a return of law and order and bring us together when he first won the Presidency in 1968!

There is more chance that we will land on Mars in the next decade than that we are going to have $2 gasoline return!

This woman, Michele Bachmann, has lost all credibility, and needs to be drummed out of the race as a fool and a danger, because she can only incite mindless people who have no clue to how government works, and she promotes division, not unity, in the midst of major economic crisis, when wisdom, not stupidity and hallucination, needs to be present to deal with our problems as a nation!

2011 Is Becoming A Repeat Of 1937-1938! Economic Disaster In The Making!

Ronald Leave a comment

In 1937, under great pressure from critics, President Franklin D. Roosevelt cut back federal spending on the New Deal after four years of greatly increased spending, which had brought down the unemployment rate and given millions of Americans hope for the future, with the growing number of jobs and economic expansion resulting from people having income increases.

Conservatives then, as now, condemned the New Deal spending, and Roosevelt, unfortunately, reacted to it, and the result was the infamous collapse of the economy again, what is referred to as the Recession of 1937-1938 within the era of the Great Depression.

The result of what was done due to conservative pressure was the following:

1. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 49 percent from its peak in 1937 by the year 1938.

2. Manufacturing production dropped by 37 percent, greater than from 1929-1933 under President Herbert Hoover.

3. Unemployment percentages, which had reached 25 percent in 1933 as Hoover left the Presidency and then declined to 14 percent, suddenly rose to 19 percent because of the cut in federal spending, and the corresponding loss of jobs all over again.

4. Price declines, due to lack of spending, led to deflation, which is far worse than inflation.

The events of the past week, with steep stock market declines, and gyration of stock prices like we have never seen them before, is a danger sign, a warning sign, that we could have a disastrous economic collapse that could be even worse than 2008!

So the urging of Nobel Prize winning Paul Krugman of Princeton University and the New York Times, and of former Labor Secretary, (Bill Clinton) and University of California at Berkeley Professor Robert Reich that MUCH MORE federal spending is needed to stimulate the economy, and that budget cuts on a massive scale with no tax increases is a disastrous policy, needs to be listened to by government leaders!

However, with a GOP House majority, and the fact that Republicans can filibuster in the Senate with their 47 members, it makes such a possibility just about impossible!

The American people, by their ignorance or lack of understanding, have caused this mess by creating a split Congress, with, of course, corporate spending endorsed by the Citizens United case of the Supreme Court, playing a major role as well in causing a disastrous economic situation, which will cause much suffering, and guarantee the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression will become far worse in the next two years, until the next Congress, hopefully, will reverse course, but only if the Democrats win both houses and keep the White House!

Right Wing Talk About Impeachment Or Resignation: A Dangerous And Preposterous Idea!

Ronald Leave a comment

The right wing will stop at nothing to get President Barack Obama out of office!

Talk of impeachment comes from a Texas Republican Congressman Michael Burgess of the Dallas area, the same district that used to be represented by Dick Armey, the head of Freedom Works and promoter of the Tea Party Movement. Burgess’s reasoning is that Obama is totally ineffective and should be removed for that reason, rather than any specific violation of the Constitution.

The concept of impeachment has already been abused, as with the proceeding against former President Bill Clinton in 1998-1999. It is preposterous to say that even if a President is ineffective, which is highly debatable, in the case of Obama, that it should be considered an impeachable offense. In any case, even were an impeachment proceeding to develop, there is no possibility of a two thirds vote in the US Senate to convict and remove the President, and all it would do, therefore, is cause more economic tumult and political disarray, which is precisely what this country does NOT need!

If one wants to place blame for the chaos and tumult going on right now, it must be shared not only by the President and his party, but also, and to a greater extent, the refusal of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, and their extremist Tea Party allies, to negotiate and compromise on any agreement that would raise taxes to help balance out the budget crisis!

But now, we also have right wing critics who are suggesting that the President resign because of lack of public support, and that he first replace Joe Biden as Vice President with someone more unifying. This assumes that Joe Biden would resign, and one wonders who would the right wing prefer to become Vice President temporarily before becoming President. Would the extremists accept Hillary Clinton? Highly doubtful, and in any case, why should the right wing tell us who our President is, when Obama was elected for a four year term and should finish that term, and leave it to the American people as to whether they prefer him or the Republican opponent as their next President!

It would be unprecedented for Obama to resign, even if one thinks of him as a failure, which he is clearly NOT!

Only Richard Nixon has resigned, just 37 years ago on August 9 because of the Watergate Crisis, and that was for criminal activity!

Only Woodrow Wilson secretly planned to resign in 1916 if he lost reelection, with World War I on, and America in danger of getting involved. His secret idea was to hand over the Presidency to his opponent, Charles Evans Hughes, ahead of time, if Hughes had won.

Many Presidents have been seen as failures in different ways, but NEVER has a President resigned because of that belief, and it would destroy the whole American system of government if every time there was discontent, the President should be forced out by resignation.

Think of the many cases that would exist:

1, James Madison, when Washington, DC was attacked by the British, and Congress and the President had to flee, during the War Of 1812.
2. Martin Van Buren, when the country suffered from the Panic of 1837.
3. John Tyler, upon succeeding the dead William Henry Harrison in 1841, being told he was illegitimate even though he had been Vice President.
4. James Buchanan, when we went through the Panic of 1857, and later when the South was seceding from the Union.
5. Abraham Lincoln, when he waged war against the South, and violated civil liberties in wartime for purposes of saving the Union.
6. Andrew Johnson, who was actually impeached but found not guilty, who many wanted to resign as well, because of his opposition to the goals of the Radical Republicans on Reconstruction policy.
7. Ulysses S. Grant, who presided over the worst political corruption up to that point of time, and under whom we suffered from the Panic of 1873.
8.Warren G. Harding, who had the most corrupt administration after Grant, but died just as we learned about the extent of the corruption.
9. Herbert Hoover, who was cautious and ineffective as the Great Depression became the worst economic crisis in American history.
10. Franklin D. Roosevelt, for his controversial domestic and foreign policy actions and strong executive leadership in the time of the Great Depression and World War II.
11. Harry Truman, who many thought should resign after the Republicans won both houses of Congress in 1947-48, and for his Korean War policies.
12. Jimmy Carter, for his ineffective policies on the economy and the Iran hostage crisis.
13. Ronald Reagan, for the Iran Contra scandal which erupted in his second term of office.
14. Bill Clinton, for various accusations of scandals, and for his affair with Monica Lewinsky, which led to impeachment, but not conviction by the Senate.
15. George W. Bush, for taking us into war In Iraq on false pretenses, and reckless spending, creating the debt problems of today.

The answer is NOT to have a President resign, but rather to overcome partisanship in a crisis as we have now, and unite around the President, help him, not attack him, and put COUNTRY FIRST!

The Presidency will be destroyed if we let the naysayers rule the roost, and tell the occupant of the Oval Office to resign, as that will not restore confidence!

We have survived good and bad Presidents, and the answer is to follow the US Constitution and stop this irresponsible attack by the right wing on the Constitution they claim to revere, but in practice violate and abuse on a regular basis!

Back To The Era Of Calvin Coolidge On The 88th Anniversary Of His Ascendancy To The Presidency!

Ronald Leave a comment

On August 3, 1923, Calvin Coolidge became the 30th President of the United States upon the death of President Warren G. Harding.

While everyone who studies the era of the 1920s sees Coolidge as an improvement on Harding (regarded the worst President of the 20th century and one of the bottom two or three in all of American history), the fact is that the Coolidge Administration ushered in a full return to the mentality of the Gilded Age, leading to a revival of monopoly capitalism, exploitation of labor, a growing maldistribution of wealth,and the lowest level of taxation of the rich and the corporations in the entire 20th century!

And we all know what that led to: the Great Depression, which lasted ten years, and was only overcome by World War II and the highest level of taxation of the rich and corporations in the century, followed by very high levels of taxation under Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s, and lower but substantial rates even under Republicans Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and Democrat Bill Clinton, among others.

And the country prospered even when Bill Clinton RAISED taxes in the early 1990s, and we had a balanced budget in the last years of the Clinton Presidency.

But then, we moved in the opposite direction under George W. Bush, the lowest taxation levels of the rich and corporations since 1928, the last full year of Calvin Coolidge in office and the year before the Great Depression occurred under Herbert Hoover.

Now we are faced with the strong likelihood of a revival of the Great Recession, but the Republicans have made low taxation a religion that is ultimately going to destroy the social fabric of this nation, and endangers all of us with the possibility of violence and bloodshed as conditions deteriorate to the worst since the 1930s!

This is a terrifying time, and one has to ask, what happened to patriotism, the idea that we sacrifice for each other, and that the rich and corporations pay their fair share of taxation to sustain the country’s economy! Apparently, greed and selfishness rule as they did in the Gilded Age and the 1920s, as if we have made no progress in the 80 plus years since the beginning of the Great Depression!