A little while ago, Reagan and Bush Sr. adviser Bruce Bartlett compared Barack Obama to Richard Nixon. The entire article, which argues that Obama was not the transformative president that his party’s base wanted to see, is worth reading. But I wanted to focus on one thing that I think Bartlett gets wrong:
By the time Dwight Eisenhower took office, people craved stability and he was determined to give it to them. This angered his fellow Republicans, who wanted nothing more than to repeal Roosevelt’s New Deal, root and branch. And with control of both the House and Senate in 1953 and 1954, he could have undone a lot of it if he wanted to.
But Eisenhower not only refused to repeal the New Deal, he wouldn’t even let Republicans in Congress cut taxes even though the high World War II and Korean War rates were in effect. He thought a balanced budget should take priority. Eisenhower also helped to destroy right wing hero Joe McCarthy and worked closely with liberals on civil rights.
Eisenhower’s effective liberalism was deeply frustrating to conservatives. Robert Welch of the John Birch Society even accused him of being a communist. But after Republicans lost control of Congress in 1954, he was the only game in town for them.
I think this errantly reads today’s politics into the past.
From “The Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower” by Pach and Richardson, p. 107:
Eisenhower… thought no issue more flagrantly demonstrated [Democrats'] partisanship than their bill to cut taxes… Eisenhower considered such an idea reckless and dangerous at a time when he was trying to narrow the deficit in the federal budget. He urged Republican leaders to “denounce the Democrats every step of the way.” If they succeeded, the tax cut would “bring back inflation and… cause the cost of living to skyrocket.” Following his own advice, he condemned the tax exemption at a press conference on 23 February [1955] as “some kind of heights in fiscal irresponsibility.” Although unable to persuade the House, Eisenhower won in the Senate, thereby stopping what he considered a sordid Democratic effort “to buy votes with the public’s money.”
Now, it’s true that Congressional Republicans weren’t averse to cutting taxes at that time either, as this contemporaneous Time magazine writeup shows. But it wasn’t the animating force of the GOP like it is today. From that Time article, more of Eisenhower’s comments at that February 23 press conference:
Ike said sharply “When we talk about decreasing revenues at a time when the Government, in spite of every saving we have been able to make, is still spending somewhat more than it takes in, we are reaching some kind of heights in fiscal irresponsibility.”
Eisenhower’s top tax rates were, of course, far higher than anything contemplated today. But since that time, something has gone truly awry with the souls of white folk.
(Drawing on a post at Poison Your Mind).