A Salute to the Gripper

Salute to the Gripper

In my younger days, I was on the verge of becoming a young liberal when one man said there is hope for America. His positive attitudes infected and challenge my socialist ideals of what “America” should be. I like most American suffered under the previous policies of the “Mr. Rogers sweater-wearing President”. The prime rate was at 20%, my mortgage rate was at 13% and the un-employment rate was above 10%. Filing my income taxes was even more difficult with the multiple tax brackets and deductions.
The presidential election was surely one of the easiest decisions most Americans had to make base upon the “misery index”. After his victory in the election, the world began to change. America still had the same problems, but there was hope! His vision of freedom and “peace through strength” sent shockwaves around the world. He was labeled a “cowboy”, an “actor”, a “war monger”, an “idiot”, and yet he was able to communicate his ideas to the American people. His ideas about the economy were laughed at and called voodoo economics. The opponents of his economic program ensured there would be deficits, because they began spending more money, than doing what they had promised. The Federal tax revenues when he became president were only 385 Billion, and the deficit was 80 billion per year. When his tax cuts were implemented, the Federal revenues began to increase upward, over the next 8 years to 1 trillion dollars. The deficits grew also, to???, all within manageable levels.

The whole idea of a president controlling your financial future is folly propagated by the repeated citations of budget surpluses and deficits. The president does not allocate funds for the Federal Budget, congress does. The president does not cut budgets, but only proposes guidelines for congress. There were no line item veto’s, either the president signed the budget or he did not sign it and returned it to congress. The president was not responsible for any agency’s cut within the Federal budget, but he was personally blamed for someone’s shortfall at the national feed trough. The “3 card Monte” game that was being played out was the brainchild of the Democratic Party. The Democratically controlled congress, allow all the tax cuts, but they also cut popular existing social programs. Now, to understand the math in Washington, a spending cut is not a cut, but a reduction of “planned increases”. The Federal “planned increases” for the budget was around 13% a year, based upon the inflation index. Nothing mobilizes people more than proposing to cut their favorite government social program. Meanwhile, the number of government employees grew and “new social programs” were created as a “safety net” for those who were displaced by the “old social programs” cut. When the president ask if you were better off than 4 years earlier, the people responded by voting 49 states to 1!

The opposition party was embarrassed to the point hysteria and using the news media as their bully pulpit. All out class warfare began, the rich vs. poor, whites vs. blacks, political scandals, investigations and allocation of wrong doing, all to discredit the president’s economic program of cutting taxes and big government spending.

Despite the fact the stock market, personal income, and job creation began increasing for the next 18 years, all the news media could do was focus on the problems. The news media’s hatred of the “gipper” legacy has polluted a whole generation of Americans who were not politically active during the last 20 years. They are still pouring salt into the wound that divides this country today. Every problem in America is because of the “gipper”, and those who believe in the wisdom of the American people and not big government. The “gipper” believe that the American people were smart enough, inventive enough, and creative enough, for self-improvement without the governments help. The opposition party believed that all wisdom, and resources were created in Washington, and that the American people were too stupid to handle their own problems. I suspect, that next week will begin the vicious cycle of attacks on the conservative politics and more than once the “gipper ideas” will be mentioned as the source of all problems.

So I will have a few shots of black label and reminisce on the good things that the “gipper” gave us.


Rekindling the American Spirit and creating a positive vision for all people,
Encouraging self-improvement
Spreading freedom throughout the world
Free market economics
Ending the cold war
Spreading capitalism
Creating an atmosphere innovation and productivity
Deregulation of airlines and transportation
Clear positive communication of ideas
Moral and spiritual clarity
Presidential Leadership
A balanced Supreme Court

To quote the “gipper”, which is still relevant in today’s fight against terrorism.

“Let’s set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second—surrender.”

God Bless

Doc