President Obama delivered his final State of the Union on Tuesday night, and the tone of his speech could not have been in starker contrast to the rhetoric emanating from the campaign trail for those seeking to succeed him.
To hear some candidates say it, the State of The Union is in shambles, and the country needs to become great again. But that’s what candidates do. They aggrandize every slight fault they can find to justify a radical change in course that should lead voters to support them.
President Obama’s address was immediately dismissed by some, if not all, running on the G.O.P. side. But as they assail President Obama’s speech they should realize that some of what they protest is similar to what their party’s 20th-century hero President Reagan said in his final State of the Union.
Not surprisingly, both cited the required words ‘We The People’ and ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people.’
But dig deeper, and there are similarities that will surprise you.
On trade, Reagan and Obama both advocated trade deals and open markets.
Reagan wanted to extend a deal with Canada to Mexico and beyond, saying: ‘Our goal must be a day when the free flow of trade, from the tip of Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic Circle, unites the people of the Western Hemisphere in a bond of mutually beneficial exchange, when all borders become what the U.S.-Canadian border so long has been: a meeting place rather than a dividing line.’ He wasn’t talking about building walls.
Obama touted the Trans Pacific Partnership as a way to open trade including some of the same Western Hemisphere countries Reagan envisioned.
In 1988, the economy had seen a drop in the unemployment rate and the federal deficit and Reagan was quick to point that out that ‘we have worked together to bring down spending, tax rates, and inflation, employment has climbed to record heights; America has created more jobs.’
Twenty-eight years later, Obama cited similar basic facts of the economy: ‘We’re in the middle of the longest streak of private-sector job creation in history. More than 14 million new jobs; the strongest two years of job growth since the ’90s; an unemployment rate cut in half…. And we’ve done all this while cutting our deficits by almost three-quarters.’
It is interesting that the accepted perception is Reagan was a job-creating deficit hawk while Obama is a job-killing spendthrift. The facts are that the economy as it relates to jobs and the deficit under both Presidents are actually pretty similar:
But the similarities also extend to other areas that might surprise you.
In education, Reagan mentioned education reform and climbing test scores. Obama talked about high school graduation rates reaching an all-time high. Reagan listed merit pay for great teachers, local control, and a stronger curriculum, while Obama touted bipartisan reform of No Child Left Behind that increased local control and called us to recruit and more great teachers.
On issues of government assistance, Reagan had this to say: ‘Let’s start making our welfare system the first rung on America’s ladder of opportunity, a boost up from dependency, not a graveyard but a birthplace of hope.’
Obama said this: ‘Say a hardworking American loses his job — we shouldn’t just make sure he can get unemployment insurance; we should make sure that program encourages him to retrain for a business that’s ready to hire him.’
On major foreign policy initiatives, Obama touted a nuclear arms deal with Iran, while in 1988, Reagan touted the INF Treaty he negotiated with the Soviet Union. Both men hoped for a world free from the threat of nuclear weapons.
While I have highlighted some similarities, there were certainly other differences between the two men’s speeches. This column isn’t intended to measure the merits of one president versus another. What it is meant to do is highlight the themes of two presidents making two speeches 28 years apart.
Both men were free because they no longer had to campaign; free to speak a voice of inner optimism and talking of hopes over fears.
‘One other thing we Americans like — the future — like the sound of it, the idea of it, the hope of it….Where others take counsel of their fears, we follow our hopes. Yes, we Americans like the future and like making the most of it. Let’s do that now.’ — President Reagan
‘That’s the America I know. That’s the country we love. Clear-eyed. Big-hearted. Optimistic that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word. That’s what makes me so hopeful about our future.’ — President Obama
Those inclined to dismiss Obama’s State of The Union should realize they’d praise the same language and issues coming from the mouth of President Reagan. Those who may dislike Reagan’s presidency should realize he stood for some things they would support coming from President Obama.
That is the basic dysfunction of the politics of our time; the condemnation of each other through sloganeering and broad labels. We learn to dislike the person based on what we perceive them to be rather than recognizing each individual’s unique set of ideas — some we agree with and some we do not.
In the past and even today, maybe it takes leaders who don’t face the specter of re-election to remind us, regardless of party or politics, of who we are and what we can be.
