What this election is really about

BY GARY PALMER — For weeks I have grappled with the question: what is this election really about? My conclusion is that it is a choice between the policies of Franklin Roosevelt and the policies of Ronald Reagan.

Both Roosevelt and Reagan were elected in difficult times. Roosevelt became president during the Great Depression and Reagan was elected at the height of the Cold War and after the Carter era which left the economy in deep recession and the country in what Carter called a “malaise.”

While most Americans have heard of Roosevelt’s New Deal, the majority probably know little about the vast scope of it. Roosevelt’s New Deal set the stage for future liberal leaders in both parties to further expand the role of government and to establish massive entitlement programs that have left us with trillions of dollars of debt.

Central to Roosevelt’s view was the idea that all Americans should have equality in the pursuit of happiness which he believed could not be achieved without economic security. To achieve this equality, Roosevelt believed that both American society and American government would have to be re-ordered. Thus, his New Deal became a second Bill of Rights that was a major departure from what the Founding Fathers envisioned for America.

Roosevelt believed every person had a right to protection from the economic fears of old age, so as part of the New Deal the government created the Social Security system that will soon be bankrupt. He believed this new Bill of Rights should guarantee the right of every individual to adequate health care, so in the 1960s we created Medicaid and Medicare, health care entitlement programs that now have unfunded liabilities of over $40 trillion.

And, Roosevelt believed that every American had a right to a decent home, so in 1977 Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, a federal program that basically forced banks to make home loans to people who could not qualify for a loan nor meet their payments. This has resulted in the current crisis within our mortgage industry and financial markets and has America on the brink of another Great Depression.

Roosevelt, like his modern day disciples, believed that government bureaucrats were better at structuring our economy and society than the people and that government bureaucrats knew better than the hard-working men and women of American how to manage their lives.
Ronald Reagan could not have been more different in his view of the rights of the American people and the proper role of government.

In his first inaugural address, President Reagan famously said, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” Reagan understood that the source of America’s strength and prosperity comes from her people, not from government bureaucracy. He said, “If we look to the answer as to why for so many years we achieved so much, prospered as no other people on Earth, it was because here in this land we unleashed the energy and individual genius of man to a greater extent than has ever been done before.”

In other words, Americans have always believed that the hard work and ingenuity of individuals should be rewarded -- not punished by a government that would take gulping portions of what they had earned in order to spread the wealth around.

Reagan understood the principle that the sole end of a just government in the proper exercise of its power is the protection of the rights of the people. Therefore, a just government does not limit the freedom of its people by depriving them of the use of their resources or limit their choices except when it is necessary to protect their freedom. And a just government does not deprive some people of their rights in order to create new rights for some or improve the status or condition of some at the expense of others.

Roosevelt came to power at a time of great uncertainty and fear that created the opportunity for reshaping America. Gripped by the Great Depression, Americans chose the promises of security offered by Roosevelt’s New Deal and in the bargain got a government not found in the Constitution which, seven decades later, has given us largely unsuccessful social programs and trillions of dollars of debt.

Now, the collapse of the mortgage industry and the fear of another Great Depression that hangs over this nation are leading millions of Americans to look for security once again.

The great historian Edward Gibbon wrote this about the fall of Athens, “In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”

Twenty years ago, in the wake of Carter’s “malaise” and at a time when it appeared the USSR would win the Cold War, Americans a different course, a return to core principles. By electing Ronald Reagan, the nation started on the path to restoring the economic and constitutional principles of government that made us the most prosperous and most free nation in the history of the world. And now, we will choose again. In my opinion, that is what this election is about.