How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
How can America beat the recession? If you're a pessimist, your answer is, "We can't beat it. Best learn to live with it from here on out." That certainly seems to be the downer message coming from the White House and the left-wing punditocracy these days. Take this nugget from Andrew Sullivan, for example:
[E]lixirs won't change this. We have no money for them. There are things we can do - agree on long-term debt-reduction, reform taxes, cut the defense budget, hope education can help middle and lower middle class Americans compete better on a global stage. But until we get used to this new period of austerity, and accept it, we will bang our heads against walls...
I confidently predict that Americans have so little experience of stasis or relative decline, let alone long-term hardship, that they will continue to take out their woes on various presidents required to govern at a time like this. My fear is that this despond and despair will be exploited by crazies on the populist right, as they have been in history. But culture war won't create jobs. Even a civilizational war, as some on the far right are itching for, won't help. We are not in the era when mass mobilization can be achieved in war or peace.
The best outcome, I suspect, will be a return to American realism, a determination to do the things we can while avoiding the things that will only give us a temporary hit. In this, the president's best hope is continued honesty with the American people, calm, and resilience. In hard times, radicalism appeals. But so too does small-c conservatism. In dark economic times, people sometimes keep a hold of nurse for fear of finding something worse. But all this requires a stoicism at odds with American character and history.
Many on the right will point to Reagan's success in stewarding the country out of the recession of 1980--a success he achieved by cutting income and capital gains taxes and deregulating vast swaths of the economy--as evidence that we need not accept a permanent state of economic malaise as a certain and inescapable destiny. But, according to Charles Johnson writing in the Wall Street Journal today, Americans should look back even further than the Reagan years to the Coolidge administration for a lesson in transforming a recession into a boom. Mr. Johnson explains,
Like the current administration, the Harding-Coolidge administration faced a tough recession from 1919-1921. But unlike the current administration, the Harding-Coolidge and Coolidge-Dawes administrations cut taxes, balanced budgets and slashed government spending, reducing federal debt by over a third in a decade.
The economy grew, averaging just over 7% from 1924 to 1929, the years of his presidency. So did Coolidge's popularity...
Unlike President Obama, President Coolidge didn't want to "spread the wealth around," but to grow it. He didn't call for "shared sacrifice"—Americans had sacrificed enough during the great war—but for good character.
There "is no surer road to destruction than prosperity without character," he said in a speech at the University of Pennsylvania in 1921. And from the White House lawn in 1924 he said, "I want the people of America to be able to work less for the Government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. That is the chief meaning of freedom."
And now onward to find the Calvin Coolidge of the age. I think this might be a good place to start.
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Jul '10
Re: How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
Seeing Coolidge in print floors me. About the only thing they teach now is that he was Silent Cal. The more I learn about him, the higher he climbs in my own estimation.
Mar '11
Re: How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
While certainly not onboard with the Administration's whole hearted embrace of a declining America there is a certain truth in that this recession is not fading away soon regardless of actions. Even if the President had a "Road to Damascus" moment and started changing course immediately we would still be in for a long slog. Let us not underestimate our nations economic problems, they are substantial and they precede this Administration; President Obama simply decided to make them even worse.
Jul '10
Re: How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
"How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal"
Jun '10
Re: How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
From one year ago:
Glenn Beck: Calvin Coolidge Still Matters (Aug 13, 2010)
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4310804/beck-calvin-coolidge-still-matters?r_src=ramp
(Coolidge comments start at about 2 mins)
Apr '11
Re: How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
America's economy is still the biggest in the world. Americans are hard-working, moral people. This can be turned around. It's a lie to say that Obama is "destroying our economy", as Rush Limbaugh recently said.
I well remember the economy in 1980 when I was young and a (gag) democrat. Yes, Carter's policies created an economic and energy disaster. But it didn't last. I vividly remember history just this way: "Reagan's success in stewarding the country out of the recession of 1980--a success he achieved by cutting income and capital gains taxes and deregulating vast swaths of the economy". That's when I switched my party affiliation.
I remember the Clinton era in the early 1990's when the economy was going down the same way it is now. And then we elected a Republican majority, and Speaker Newt Gingrich implemented the "Contract with America" and the economy turned around.
Rubio is correct. It CAN happen again.
And here are some solutions that would work:
http://www.newt.org/solutions/jobs-economy
Mar '11
Re: How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
Andrew smoke another J and just let it pass. If you are not in a drug induced stupor when it happens you will be amazed at what can be accomplished through market based solutions and real leadership. Coolidge was the model for Reagan.
Re: How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
I give up. You need to start writing the titles around here :)
Jun '10
Re: How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
Of course he's destroying our economy. If you respond to recession by attacking people with high personal incomes, essentially attacking productivity, if you run up unparalleled federal debt, and you do everything you can to foster business uncertainty, if you put up roadblock after roadblock to energy investment, then you're destroying the economy. The only question then is, are you doing it out of ignorance, or are you an anti-capitalist doing it by design?
Aug '10
Re: How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
Excellent speech by Sen. Rubio. I'm still waiting for a Ryan / Rubio ticket.
I need to start reading more about Pres. Coolidge. Sounds like the kind of president we need right now.
Jun '11
Re: How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
Beautiful quote from Coolidge there at the end of your post, Diane, about working less for the government.
However, the recruitment of Andrew Mellon, the Bill Gates or like of his age, by Harding and wisely retained by Coolidge cannot be underestimated. Mellon wrote in his book about taxation the truthful fundamentals about American business and funding of government. He led on economic issues for Coolidge. He is one of the most unsung heroes in American history and has gone under-appreciated by JFK, Kemp, Reagan, and Bush and virtually all Americans;
The wonderful National Gallery of Art should be the Mellon Art Gallery.
May '10
Re: How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
I appreciate the optimism, but there may be more convincing, less liberal reasons to have a more sober outlook on the future.
I also appreciate the Calvin Coolidge quote, but comparing him to Senator Rubio was kind of like comparing King Kong to an average chimp. You just don't do it.
Apr '11
Re: How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
Coolidge was magnificent, in many ways, and was Reagan's favorite president. That said, he had a pretty strong dark side to him, too. This is him, after leaving office, advocating Smoot-Hawley and making the depression worse. Michael Moore on steroids.It's worth remembering that he's talking about European trade as much as anything.
"We wish to protect our own wage earners, our agriculture and industry from the results of dumping produce on our markets at a price with which they could not compete. But the policy has a deeper significance than that. We are unwilling to profit by the distress of foreign people. We do not want their blood money. Our efforts are not only to protect our own people from cheap goods, which President McKinley said meant cheap men, but we propose to set up a standard that will discourage other nations from exploiting their people by producing cheap goods. Our policy requires fair wages for both domestic and foreign production. We have no market for blood and tears."
Coolidge was a funny, pithy, guy, but I'm not sure I wouldn't rather have Bush, who was excellent on trade.
Sep '10
Re: How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
Sullivan: I confidently predict that Americans have so little experience of stasis or relative decline, let alone long-term hardship, that they will continue to take out their woes on various presidents required to govern at a time like this.
Way to get it exactly backwards. Is that what Americans are doing now? Taking our woes out on the president because we have no ability to withstand hardship? And what we're doing is affecting him how? ... him and his populist crazies? I thought we were all just proceeding with our lives, keeping it all going in spite of what the president is doing. And what's this about presidents that are required to govern? Must have been required to run as well because, after all, he's The One for Andrew.
May '10
Re: How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
James Of England: Coolidge was magnificent, in many ways, and was Reagan's favorite president. That said, he had a pretty strong dark side to him, too. This is him, after leaving office, advocating Smoot-Hawley and making the depression worse. Michael Moore on steroids.It's worth remembering that he's talking about European trade as much as anything.
Aug 5 at 5:42am
There are many justifications for protective tariffs that have less to do with economic prosperity and more to do with protecting cultural distinctness. Coolidge seemed to think tariffs could accomplish both at times. However, he also predicted that the Smoot-Hawley Tarrif would not truly benefit the American farmer. He did seem to think it would advantage American industry to some extent.
The Smoot-Hawley tariff was poor drafted. Its excesses might have contributed to the Great Depression. Personally, I think it's overblown by those with a global, free trade agenda. Also, I think it's notable that a staunch free trade defender like Milton Friedman, who wrote in detail on the Great Depression, gave scant attention to protectionism and focused almost all of his time on the monetary causes of the depression.
May '10
Re: How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
Leslie Watkins: Sullivan: I confidently predict that Americans have so little experience of stasis or relative decline, let alone long-term hardship, that they will continue to take out their woes on various presidents required to govern at a time like this.
Way to get it exactly backwards. Is that what Americans are doing now? Taking our woes out on the president because we have no ability to withstand hardship? And what we're doing is affecting him how?
Actually, I thought that quote was one of the best from the section Diane excerpted from Sullivan, and, ironically, the most Coolidge-esque.
Re: How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
Brandon Zaffini
Leslie Watkins: Sullivan: I confidently predict that Americans have so little experience of stasis or relative decline, let alone long-term hardship, that they will continue to take out their woes on various presidents required to govern at a time like this.
Way to get it exactly backwards. Is that what Americans are doing now? Taking our woes out on the president because we have no ability to withstand hardship? And what we're doing is affecting him how?
Actually, I thought that quote was one of the best from the section Diane excerpted from Sullivan, and, ironically, the most Coolidge-esque. · Aug 5 at 6:59am
The Sullivan piece seems inspired by Carter's "Crisis of Confidence" speech -- very defeatist, negative, and underestimating of the American spirit.
This sort of pessimism can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you see Obama talk down the economy, is it any wonder that consumer confidence is at an all time low and that folks are anxious and apprehensive about America's outlook? People really crave an optimistic realist, someone who'll tell it like it is but who has a vision for restoring prosperity. At least I know I do.
May '10
Re: How to Kick the Recession in the Teeth: Listen to Silent Cal
Diane Ellis, Ed.
The Sullivan piece seems inspired by Carter's "Crisis of Confidence" speech -- very defeatist, negative, and underestimating of the American spirit.
Yet behind all the defeatist language is a legitimate point that needs to be heard. Here is how President Harding put it, who was the running mate and predecessor of Coolidge, as you know:
"The problems of maintained civilization are not to be solved by a transfer of responsibility from citizenship to government...."
Transferring responsibility tends to work several ways. We might give the government more of our responsible tasks, or we might place on the government most of our responsible blame. While liberals may do both, conservatives are at least guilty of the latter.
Harding continues:
"I pray for sober thinking in behalf of the future of America. No worth-while republic ever went the tragic way to destruction, which did not begin the downward course through luxury of life and extravagance of living. More, the simple living and thrifty people will be the first to recover..."
Sullivan's pessimism may stem from his doubt that Americans are still morally capable of such sacrifice. I'm not so sure he's wrong.
Edited on Aug 5, 2011 at 10:01am