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Nothing New Under The Sun
A recent poll ironically shows that when asked to name one word that best describes the two candidates for President in November's election, those polled identified Barack Obama with "change" and "outsider", while they recognize John McCain as "old". This is ironic because if there's a "forward to the past" candidate, a campaign based on a familiar formula and rehashed ideas, it's Obama's. His platform proves the axiom that "there's nothing new under the sun", tracing a line back nearly a hundred years.
To find the most recent example of Obama's "forward to the past" campaign, one needs only to think back a mere 16 years to the candidacy of then-Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas. Along with "It's the economy, stupid", one of Clinton's central working campaign themes was "Change versus more of the same", and he spoke nearly incessantly about bringing a fresh approach, new ideas to the government. Like Clinton, Obama has based his campaign on getting "the rich" to pay more in taxes and railing against "tax cuts for the rich" enacted by predecessors in spite of the fact that Clinton's opponent, George Bush, had himself raised taxes on "the rich" in the famous 1990 budget deal with Congressional Democrats, and under the tax cuts enacted by both Reagan and George W. Bush the share of income taxes paid by the top wage earners actually increased. Still, the idea that someone is getting rich and needs to be punished is a theme played to the hilt by Democrats in the 20th and 21st centuries: John Kerry in 2004, Michael Dukakis in 1988, and Walter Mondale in 1984 all rode the "soak the rich" platform.
Unlike Clinton, who sold himself as a "New Democrat" who was breaking with the standard statist, leftist politics of Democratic predecessors, Obama is embracing even the Presidency of Jimmy Carter, particularly in foreign policy and energy policy. Like Carter, Obama believes that increased taxation of oil companies and greater government intrusion into the economy is the right prescription for energy independence, actual evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Where Carter equated national government-centric energy policy as the "moral equivalent of war", Obama uses less martial terminology in favor of a more messianic tone, claiming that once he's elected the "earth will heal".
While the parallels of Obama's statist agenda are obvious compared to LBJ's Great Society and FDR's New Deal, and even Woodrow Wilson's World War I socialism, a more interesting parallel exists between Obama's campaign themes and his economic policies in the face of a faltering economy and those of a Republican President: Herbert Hoover. While hard to comprehend in retrospect, with the benefit of hindsight and history, Hoover's campaign in 1928 was one based on a cult of personality; he had gained fortune as a mining engineer, then fame and admiration for his work in Woodrow Wilson's wartime Food Administration and later helping provide food for post-World War I Europe. He later increased his standing with the public due to his work coordinating relief efforts for the Mississippi River flood of 1927, the first real federal government disaster relief effort.
Hoover campaigned and governed as a self-proclaimed "Progressive", denouncing laissez-faire economics and believing that the economy could be effectively managed by government regulation — that he could engineer continued prosperity that was the hallmark of the 1920s under President Coolidge. His campaign even had a reconciliation aspect: while Hoover himself was of course white, his running mate, Charles Curtis, was part Native American.
But it is Hoover's response to the economic crisis that became the Great Depression which draws the closest parallels with the platform on which Obama is running in 2008. Hoover proposed sweeping government programs to promote public works, bail out homeowners facing foreclosure, and subsidize farmers. More important were his actions on taxes and trade. Hoover increased taxes on the "rich" — the top income tax rate was increased from 25% to 63% — just as Obama promises to do. He increased the corporate tax rate and raised the estate tax — just as Obama promises to do. And, just as Obama has campaigned on the theme of government restriction of trade, opposing a free trade agreement with Colombia, proposing a "moratorium" on new trade agreements, and promising to "renegotiate" the current free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico (our two biggest trading partners), Hoover implemented the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. Smoot-Hawley dramatically increased tariffs on imported goods in the name of protecting American jobs, in spite of the warning of over 1000 economists.
The old axiom about the refusal to learn from history dooming a society to repeat it seems especially poignant during the election of 2008. We've seen it all before: the impacts of Obama's agenda writ large on the bread lines of the 1930s and the gas lines of the 1970s. There truly is nothing new under the sun in terms of substance; only the packaging changes.
To find the most recent example of Obama's "forward to the past" campaign, one needs only to think back a mere 16 years to the candidacy of then-Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas. Along with "It's the economy, stupid", one of Clinton's central working campaign themes was "Change versus more of the same", and he spoke nearly incessantly about bringing a fresh approach, new ideas to the government. Like Clinton, Obama has based his campaign on getting "the rich" to pay more in taxes and railing against "tax cuts for the rich" enacted by predecessors in spite of the fact that Clinton's opponent, George Bush, had himself raised taxes on "the rich" in the famous 1990 budget deal with Congressional Democrats, and under the tax cuts enacted by both Reagan and George W. Bush the share of income taxes paid by the top wage earners actually increased. Still, the idea that someone is getting rich and needs to be punished is a theme played to the hilt by Democrats in the 20th and 21st centuries: John Kerry in 2004, Michael Dukakis in 1988, and Walter Mondale in 1984 all rode the "soak the rich" platform.
Unlike Clinton, who sold himself as a "New Democrat" who was breaking with the standard statist, leftist politics of Democratic predecessors, Obama is embracing even the Presidency of Jimmy Carter, particularly in foreign policy and energy policy. Like Carter, Obama believes that increased taxation of oil companies and greater government intrusion into the economy is the right prescription for energy independence, actual evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Where Carter equated national government-centric energy policy as the "moral equivalent of war", Obama uses less martial terminology in favor of a more messianic tone, claiming that once he's elected the "earth will heal".
While the parallels of Obama's statist agenda are obvious compared to LBJ's Great Society and FDR's New Deal, and even Woodrow Wilson's World War I socialism, a more interesting parallel exists between Obama's campaign themes and his economic policies in the face of a faltering economy and those of a Republican President: Herbert Hoover. While hard to comprehend in retrospect, with the benefit of hindsight and history, Hoover's campaign in 1928 was one based on a cult of personality; he had gained fortune as a mining engineer, then fame and admiration for his work in Woodrow Wilson's wartime Food Administration and later helping provide food for post-World War I Europe. He later increased his standing with the public due to his work coordinating relief efforts for the Mississippi River flood of 1927, the first real federal government disaster relief effort.
Hoover campaigned and governed as a self-proclaimed "Progressive", denouncing laissez-faire economics and believing that the economy could be effectively managed by government regulation — that he could engineer continued prosperity that was the hallmark of the 1920s under President Coolidge. His campaign even had a reconciliation aspect: while Hoover himself was of course white, his running mate, Charles Curtis, was part Native American.
But it is Hoover's response to the economic crisis that became the Great Depression which draws the closest parallels with the platform on which Obama is running in 2008. Hoover proposed sweeping government programs to promote public works, bail out homeowners facing foreclosure, and subsidize farmers. More important were his actions on taxes and trade. Hoover increased taxes on the "rich" — the top income tax rate was increased from 25% to 63% — just as Obama promises to do. He increased the corporate tax rate and raised the estate tax — just as Obama promises to do. And, just as Obama has campaigned on the theme of government restriction of trade, opposing a free trade agreement with Colombia, proposing a "moratorium" on new trade agreements, and promising to "renegotiate" the current free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico (our two biggest trading partners), Hoover implemented the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. Smoot-Hawley dramatically increased tariffs on imported goods in the name of protecting American jobs, in spite of the warning of over 1000 economists.
The old axiom about the refusal to learn from history dooming a society to repeat it seems especially poignant during the election of 2008. We've seen it all before: the impacts of Obama's agenda writ large on the bread lines of the 1930s and the gas lines of the 1970s. There truly is nothing new under the sun in terms of substance; only the packaging changes.
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