Age of Obama vs. Age of Reagan.

Age of Obama vs. Age of Reagan.

As Sean Hannity gears up to highlight his new book at the Reagan Library tonight, Jeffrey Lord, a former Reagan political director, sees this book introduction as a much needed shot in the arm for conservatism after last week’s harrowing takeover of health care. He sees Hannity’s book, Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda, as a good way to showcase the contrast between the Age of Reagan and the Age of Obama. The New York Times has recently proclaimed that, “Beyond the health reform’s effect on the medical system, it is the centerpiece of (Obama’s) deliberate effort to end what historians have called the age of Reagan.” Here’s a portion of Lord’s response to that in The American Spectator.

…That cursed Age of Reagan. Who wouldn’t want to get away from an era that created 50 million or so jobs from 1983 until 2008? How fortunate we are to have lost four million jobs in the last year, no?  Snip —

Even as the President (Obama) was smugly asserting that all was well in the Age of Obama, AT&T, according to the Wall Street Journal, announced that it “will be forced to make a $1 billion writedown due solely to the health bill, in what has become a wave of such corporate losses.” That wave also includes a $150 million writedown from John Deere, the Iowa makers of those iconic green tractors. For Caterpillar it will be $100 million. AK Steel is stuck with $31 million. The 3M company $90 million. Verizon and Valero Energy are alerting employees their health costs are about to skyrocket. The Journal also highlights a report by John DiStaso of New Hampshire’s Union Leader “that ObamaCare could cost the Granite State’s major ski resorts as much as $1 million in fines, because they hire large numbers of seasonal workers without offering health benefits.”

Result?

A rising tide of disaster is already flooding through the country at ground level, sweeping along lost jobs for workers, massive losses for shareholders, destroying desperately needed capital even as it inevitably betrays the promise of not raising taxes and allowing Americans to keep the doctor of their choice. Snip –

What a wonderful treat to move from the Age of Reagan to the Age of Obama if you work for AT&T, Deere or Caterpillar or Verizon. OK, so you will lose your choice of doctors because your health care costs will go up. So you lose your job because your employer simply can’t afford you anymore. So your shares in the company stock are worth less and beginning to drain your retirement fund or that money you invested for your child’s education. So you make a heck of a lot less than $250,000 a year and your taxes are going to go up. So the IRS is busily hiring 16,000 IRS agents to keep track of whether or not you have a government-approved insurance policy. So you weren’t exactly told the truth about all this. So what? What’s the big deal?

Question: What was the liberal response to this news? As The Prowler right here at the American Spectator has reported:

On Friday White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett were calling the CEOs and Washington office heads of the companies that took the financial hits and attacked them for doing so. One Washington office head said that the White House calls were accusatory and “downright rude.”

Now, Congressman Henry Waxman is launching a congressional investigation and demanding internal documents, e-mails etc. In other words, America’s descent into the dark world that Reagan described as the path “down to the ant heap of totalitarians” is picking up speed.

Isn’t it great to see that sense of desperation, hopelessness, and — yes — fear in the eyes of our fellow citizens as they behold the personal consequences of government-induced economic wreckage once again?…Snip –

In writing Conservative Victory Sean Hannity has written a book that has an urgent relevance to what is going on in America right this minute — while we are increasingly caught up in the quicksand of a downward spiral of events that make the book necessary in the first place. Every candidate for office anywhere on the ballot should be reading this book.

The Conservative Victory tour Hannity launches today can effectively be seen as the opening bell in the fight to lead America out of the disastrous mess into which Obamanomics and socialist/social justice/progressive liberals are steadily leading America. There is nothing new about the so-called “change” Barack Obama has brought to this country. It has been tried around the world for over a hundred years — failing every single time.

Some version of the contrast between the Obama and Reagan worldview could and can be seen vividly in the side-by-side economies of East and West Berlin or North and South Korea…

Lord weaves a very interesting story about Reagan’s journey from his early days before politics, during his time as the president of the Screen Actors Guild, when he was amazed to find the Communists attempting to take over the film industry. It was then, in the late 1940s, that his starry-eyed liberalism met the totalitarianism of the left. You can read all of Lord here: http://spectator.org/archives/2010/03/30/sean-hannity-and-the-importanc

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