Keynesian Catastrophe: Big Money, Big Government & Big Lies
Uploaded by Pajamasmedia on Jan 19, 2012
The Cato Institute’s Dan Mitchell explains why Obama’s stimulus was a flop! With Glenn Reynolds.
See more at http://www.pjtv.com and http://www.cato.org
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I wonder what the people would have said if Rutherford Hayes had spent 24.7% of GDP a year? Obama laughs at the thought of Rutherford on Mount Rushmore, but with the economic mess we have now I don’t there is much of a chance that President Obama will end up on there either. Here is an excellent article by Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute:
A Simple Choice: Barack Obama or Rutherford Hayes?
March 19, 2012 by Dan Mitchell
Other than my ongoing adulation for Ronald Reagan, occasional praise for Calvin Coolidge, and one post about John F. Kennedy, I don’t have many nice things to say about previous Presidents.
But I feel the need to rise to the defense of Rutherford B. Hayes, who was mocked recently by the current President. This Mark Steyn column is a deliciously vicious commentary on Obama’s speech, so no need for me to delve into the details.
Instead, I want to jump on the bandwagon and produce some posters comparing the 19th President and the 44th President (if you’re not aware, posters of Pres. Hayes with self-created captions have been all over the Internet).
You won’t be surprised to learn that I’m focused on the policy differences between Hayes and Obama.
Most important, Hayes largely was true to the Founding Fathers’ vision of a limited central government. Government spending averaged only about 6 percent of economic output during his tenure (probably less, the data are not very robust, so I took the worst-case numbers) and America was blessedly free of the income tax.
Obama, on the other hand, is repeating all of Bush’s mistakes and making government an even bigger burden, and then compounding his error by pursuing class warfare tax policy.
So which President would you prefer, Hayes or Obama?
The Daily Hatch 