How To Be A Great President

Since the days of Harry Truman, presidential administrations have been ranked by their approval, expressed as a percentage.  Looking at the approval rating of all presidents from that time forward as they left office, only two were higher than 60%.  As far as greatness goes, these two men can truly be said to have been great presidents.

Ronald Reagan left office with the highest approval rating to that date, at 63%.  During the eight years he was in office, the cold war ended, tax cuts for individuals increased, nuclear arms were reduced worldwide, the war in Afghanistan ended (that didn't last very long), the first female Supreme Court Justice was appointed, the Air Traffic Controllers who went on strike were fired (they would have cost the tax payers $700 million had they received their outrageous demands), a successful rescue mission was launched in Grenada and the Strategic Defense Initiative was implemented.

When Reagan left office, the country was prosperous and at peace.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 950.68 on the day Reagan took office.  When he left, it was at 2,235.36.  

While Reagan's 63% approval rating certainly sounds impressive, and it especially is when compared with the 34% that both Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush had when they left office, or the pitiful 24% that disgraced Richard Nixon's administration.  But impressive as 63% is, it was not to remain the highest.  That title is currently held by William J. Clinton who left office with a 66% approval rating.  Highlights of the Clinton years included an impressive 115 months of economic expansion, 22 months of job creation, the highest home ownership in American history, the lowest unemployment rate to date, the lowest crime rate in 26 years, the smallest welfare rolls in 32 years, the lowest poverty rate in 20 years, the first female Attorney General and the first female Secretary of State and the conversion of the deficit to a surplus.

When Clinton left office, the country was again prosperous and at peace.  He took office with the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 3,241.95 and left when it was a staggering 10,578.24.  

These two men have one very important fact in common, and it is this commonality that made them great.  Reagan was a Republican, but the House was controlled by the Democrats.  The Republicans held a slim control of the Senate, which they lost in 1987.

Clinton is a Democrat and his first two years saw him with a Democratically lead House and Senate.  That reversed in year three when the Republicans took control of both houses and that control remained until the end of Clinton's presidency.

What each of these men had to do was work with the opposition.  No president runs this country on his own.  They all have to have the backing of the other elected officials in order to be successful and the truly great know that in order for this country to excel, no one political party can ever have its way to the detriment of the other party.  There has to be a negotiation where each party gets some of what it wants but neither party gets it all.  When we have this balance, when we work together, we are truly the United States of America and our history shows that when this happens, we can achieve greatness.

No Winners In A Government Shutdown

There aren't any winners in the recent shutdown of the government but there certainly are losers.  Chief among them is John Boehner and the Republicans in the House of Representatives followed closely by the American people.

John Boehner has worked for several years on defunding or derailing the Affordable Care Act (also known as "Obamacare").  He has brought up a vote in the House more than 40 times to halt it in one way or another and on each of these occasions the Senate has refused to vote on it.  

For anyone who doesn't know how the process works, in order to make a law the legislation is brought to the floor of both houses and both houses must agree on it.  Once an agreement is reached, it is sent to the president for his (hopefully soon her) signature.  If the president doesn't agree with it, he has the power to veto it.

In the case of the Affordable Care Act, the Senate has repeatedly stated that it will not vote on any measure that defunds, delays or derails this law.  Yet Boehner, with great zeal at wasting tax dollars wherever and whenever he can, continues to bring up useless legislation and force the House to vote.  And they have.  And it passes and goes to the Senate.  And they lose each time because the Senate does what they said they would do.

So, Boehner once again brought up a measure that the Senate told him they would not vote on.  He once again saw the measure passed and sent on to the Senate, which threw it in the trash (where it belonged) and Boehner effectively shut down the United States government.

President Obama, in true presidential fashion, refused to cave in to the demands of the Republicans in the House.  Good move on his part.  He allowed the government to shut down but in reality, much of the government remained up and running.  We still got our mail, our military was still funded, our elected officials were still working.  For the majority of Americans, we really didn't see much of a difference.

Then came the vote on the debt ceiling.  If this were not raised the United States would default on our debt and an international crisis would be on the hands of the Republicans.  We knew it, they knew it, the president knew it and the Republicans had to do something.  Sadly for them, there wasn't anything they could do but go along with the Democrats and pass the legislation that the Senate sent to them.  Which they did.

Now the Republicans have lost face with the American people.  They were responsible for the government shutdown, and hopefully, the American people will remember that the next time they go to the polls.

The American people have lost in this latest battle as well.  Our tax dollars just paid for two weeks of vacation for the employees of the government who were furloughed because of Boehner's ineptitude and gross incompetence.

I'm thinking that shutting down the government in an effort to change legislation should be seen as treason and Boehner should be dealt with accordingly.