Presidential Parallels

Presidential Parallels
By Ryan Riell

This post is going to be a mixture of topics so lets get started.

As you know, history is important to a Nation and society for multiple reasons, the two main being to remember where we came from and more importantly, to learn from mistakes of the past.

That being said, there are a LOT of parallels between the Obama presidency and the first two terms of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency. When FDR entered office in 1933, he was following the lackluster performance of President Hoover. When he took office, the Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate and the American public that was supportive of immediate action. He ran his presidential campaign (1932-33) on hope, change and blame. He blamed the previous decade of Republican presidents for the high unemployment rate (25%), fostering the growth of greedy and out of control corporations and problems with regulation and oversight. He promised a “new deal” that would be implemented by the federal government and it had to be done quickly. Does any of that sound familiar? Have you heard the term that “history tends to repeat itself”?

In his first 100 days, he created a lot of new federal programs and signed over 15 major pieces of legislation into law. Here’s how that worked out for the unemployment rates, prolonging the depression without any substantial reduction in unemployment.

FDR actually prolonged the Great Depression; it was WW2 that pulled the country out of it. In 1939, Henry Morgenthau Jr., FDR’s secretary of the treasury made the following statement to the democrats in the House Ways and Means Committee: “We have tried spending money. We are spending more that we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong… somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never mad good on our promises… I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started… And an enormous debt to boot.”

It will be interesting to see what President Obama has to say later this evening. Tomorrow, we will contrast that what FDR said in 1936.

The Democratic Party is eating it’s own, which is priceless. As I mentioned yesterday, President Obama is in a very tough spot, being stuck between the radical and progressive left of his party and the more moderate liberals in his party. After the loss of the 60th Senate seat last week, most were left wondering if the Obama administration would move more towards the center and take a populist approach for his second year. There have been mixed reports over the last week as to what the Obama administration is going to do so we will have to wait and see. Unfortunately for President Obama and the economy, his words no longer have any meaning. He has a long track record of saying one thing (Hope and Change, transparency, freezing spending is using a “hatchet where you need a scalpel” to name a few) and then doing the exact opposite. My best guess- President Obama will do his best to “relate” to the middle class in order to regain their support. I think it will take more than words to regain their support, it is very clear that Americans DO NOT want to be governed from the left, let alone the FAR LEFT.

This last weekend, President Obama sent his minions out on the morning talk show circuit, where the message was pretty ridiculous. Here’s part of an excerpt from Meet the Press between host David Gregory and Valerie Jarrett, President Obama’s Senior Advisor and Assistant for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement. After you read this, go back up a few paragraphs and reread what Morgenthau said.

MS. Jarrett: “The president, from the day he was elected, has made job creation and the economy a first priority. Let's, let's just remember where we were a year ago, David. We were losing 700,000 jobs a month. We were in the middle of the worst economic meltdown in our nation's history. Our financial system was on the brink of collapse. We had the largest federal deficit in our nation's history. And what's happened over the last 12 months? We're no longer losing 700,000 jobs a month. We've cut that number by--to less than 10 percent. We've turned the economy around. We are moving forward in the right direction.”

MR. GREGORY: “You can't say you've turned the economy around when there are four million jobs that have been lost on the president's watch. When the debt is higher and the stimulus did not produce the jobs that the administration said it would.”

MS. JARRETT: “Well, I actually disagree with everything you just said.”

The unemployment numbers for 2009, as reported by the United States Department of Labor start at a little under 8% in January of 2009 and ended at 10% in December, with the high at 10.25% in October 2009. Remember, this only accounts for people that are without a job, it is not accounting for people that are under-employed such as part-time workers and college graduates that are working the drive through window at Taco Bell:

OK, now to report something from the Obama administration that I fully support and am very glad to see coming about. As part of the 2011 Obama budget, they are proposing a record $8.8 billion to support military families. The money is to be spent on counseling, support services, childcare, school renovation, tuition assistance and youth programs. For those of you that are unaware, the average military family makes enough money to survive, but that is about it. An increase in services offered to the soldiers and their families is essential for maintaining morale in the military. GOOD JOB PRESIDENT OBAMA!

Last topic- the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution- Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (served from 1811-1845) pointed out why the founders as well as the states themselves felt the federal government should absolutely be excluded from any authority in regards to settling questions on religion. He said “it was impossible that there should not arise perpetual strife and perpetual jealousy on the subject of ecclesiastical ascendancy, if the national government were left free to create a religious establishment. The only security was in extirpating the power. But this alone would have been an imperfect security, if it had not been followed up by a declaration of the right of the free exercise of religion, and a prohibition of all religious tests. Thus, the whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to the state governments, to be acted up on according to their own sense of justice, and the state constitutions.”

This ties directly back into “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” in the first amendment.

If you take the time to examine the writings of the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in particular, it is quite clear they never intended the federal government to be involved with religion in any way, shape or form… that it is a STATE issue.

Madison said “there is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion. Its least interference with it should be a most flagrant usurpation.”

Jefferson explained his position by saying the Constitution created a “wall of separation between Church and State.”

Both Madison and Jefferson viewed religion as a state issue and that it is the states responsibility to step into religious matters in order to provide equality for all religions in that state.

Jefferson went on to say the following in his second inaugural address: “in matters of religion, I have considered that its fee exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general government. I have therefore undertake on no occasion to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them, as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline f the state or church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies.”

In the 20th century, the US Supreme Court has overstepped its Constitutional authority and involved itself in religious matters. The Supreme Court has no authority to rule on anything religion.

So why did I bring this up? There was an interesting story on the news last night about an Egyptian man Maher El-Gowhary and his daughter, whom both converted from Islam to Christianity. They never pray twice in the same Church and never stay longer than one month in any apartment… they are always on the run. Several religious Fatwa’s have been offered to “spill Maher’s blood” after he asked an Egyptian court to legally change his religion to Christianity. The court said a legal conversion to Christianity would threaten public order, while Christians that want to become Muslims are able to do so easily. Egypt has since taken possession of their passports, prohibiting them from leaving Egypt, where their lives are threatened daily.

This is why the 1st Amendment was put in place… so the federal government cannot control the religions that are allowed by the government. The 1st Amendment was not ratified to regulate the Ten Commandments from hanging on the wall, a group of athletes wanting to pray before an event or a Christmas tree being displayed on government grounds. Those are three examples of how the federal government has treaded on your “unalienable rights.” The progressive movement is smart enough to not challenge the Bill of Rights directly, they have to whittle away over time until we wake up one day and ask ourselves “where did our rights go”?