President Obama, who has brought up Republican presidents Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt in past speeches in an effort to show a GOP breaking with its roots, today told an Associated Press luncheon in Washington that Ronald Reagan couldn’t make it onto the ticket today.
Obama, who dedicated much of his address to budget issues, was asked by MediaNews CEO Dean Singleton what he would say to Americans who “just want both sides to stop fighting and get some work done on their behalf.”
“These are solvable problems if people of good faith came together and were willing to compromise,” Obama said. “The challenge we have right now is that we have on one side, a party that will brook no compromise.”
He then invoked the 40th president.
“Ronald Reagan, who, as I recall, is not accused of being a tax-and-spend socialist, understood repeatedly that when the deficit started to get out of control, that for him to make a deal he would have to propose both spending cuts and tax increases,” Obama said. “Did it multiple times. He could not get through a Republican primary today.”
He criticized Republicans for aiming to cut discretionary spending and increase defense spending as they “take in no revenue.”
“I think that there is oftentimes the impulse to suggest that if the two parties are disagreeing, then they’re equally at fault and the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and an equivalence is presented — which reinforces I think people’s cynicism about Washington generally. This is not one of those situations where there’s an equivalence,” Obama said.
“I’ve got some of the most liberal Democrats in Congress who were prepared to make significant changes to entitlements that go against their political interests, and who said they were willing to do it. And we couldn’t get a Republican to stand up and say, we’ll raise some revenue, or even to suggest that we won’t give more tax cuts to people who don’t need them.”
The president said his own positions would be considered “squarely centrist” 15 or 20 years ago.
“What’s changed is the center of the Republican Party,” he said.
“The president said his positions would be considered “squarely centrist” 15 or 20 years ago.”
Considering that Ronald Reagan issued his warning about socialized medicine in the early 60′s, yes, he would be drummed out of the Republican Party with this gobbledygook about an enlarged federal government.
Obama is the most derisive President of all-time.
I think Reagan would have a better chance of getting through a GOP primary than
jfk would have getting through a Dem primary.
Hear! Hear!
I’ll go one even further, Abraham Lincoln, were he alive, would be a Democrat.
No way in Hell, Idiot Wonder. Even though I don’t “hold much for Mr. Lincoln,” Lincoln was American to the core. Today’s Democrats are made of German nihilism and communism; and they really don’t belong in America. Hell, they really don’t even belong in Germany since we killed most of the people like them there. May have to do it here.
Well, Art your argument isn’t with me it is with Lincoln himself who uttered these very words:
“What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?”
Lincoln’s Cooper Institute Address, February 27, 1860.
Lincoln would not be aligned with the Republican Party in it’s current form, his past sentiments do not support that. I stand by my comment that if Lincoln were alive today he would most certainly be a Democrat.
A conservative in Lincoln’s time was a vastly different creature than today’s conservative.
To claim that Lincoln’s political beliefs would be very different than today’s GOP is a falsehood.
You’re far too attached to labels, rather than being able to discuss the ideas represented by those labels
Well 20 years ago Obama would not have been able to run because he is not even an American and has no idea what the American dream is all about.He believes in taking care of the cancer in society.and keeping them around to vote for the Democrat ticket
What a load of crap spewing forth from the potus mouth… a continual stream of lies and more lies. How dark the mind that is so deceived.
What a pair Obama and Biden make: dumb and dumber.
Indeed. The pressure to be re-elected seems to be getting to Obama. He has been saying so many very odd, irrational, and indefensible things lately that I’m beginning to wonder about his emotional health. Perhaps he should seek medical help.
O, proving he is still dumber than a rock! He is still, I mean still saying the same thing today what he has been saying everyday since he was elected. This man is a stupid little puppet! We are NOT!
I think the question if Reagan was running today would be whether or not he’d be asked about arming and funding both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and if he knew that Oliver North was illegally trafficking in arms and drugs under his command. They also might ask him which magazines he reads.
Thanks for the talking points from leftist fantasyland….
Reagan was responsible for ” arming and funding both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.”
In an indirect way, Reagan is responsible for 9/11, an event that murdered over 3,000 innocent Americans. Reagan planted the seeds that grew and bore this poisoned fruit. President Obama took out the monster bin Laden that you goons created with your failed foreign policy.
Actually the Euroweenies armed Saddam and the Saudis armed bin Laden.
But thanks for playing…
Nope, it was the US – I have pictures of Reagan serving tea to the Mujahadeen in the Oval Office, it is long established that Osama bin Laden was a proxy fighter for us during the former USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan. Anyone can read all about it here: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2004/06/reagans_osama_connection.single.html
There are books and articles detailing how Reagan’s CIA gave billions in taxpayer money to build up the Taliban and make Osama bin Laden into a household name.
You can also see a picture of Rumsfeld shaking Saddam’s hand, sent as Reagan’s special envoy to deliver chemical WMD to the brutal dictator. We wanted him to take out Iran, but he also wiped out Kurds and other Iraqis in genocidal slaughter, hiding the bodies in mass graves. Reports of white phosphorous use and nerve gas flooded the UN and human rights groups.
This relationship would also bite the US taxpayer in the ass when Saddam invaded Kuwait, but he was completely neutralized by the time Cheney and the CIA lied to the State Dept and Congress about having WMD in 2003.
You know Frank for a second I thought you were going to be interesting…but nope. Since right off the bat all the Slate article says is that Reagan helped bin Laden by not helping Gorbi. That’s really what you want your link to be? Plus the fact that the Arab outsiders were considered separate from the muji’s.
So that would be a fail right from the start Frank and it just makes you boring.
Truth hurts, huh? Get ready, a lot more where that came from …
The mujahedin were not all of apiece, and no, we did not support Bin Laden individually.
And yes, we were happy to have Saddam as a counterweight to Iran, but no, we did not arm him. That was the Euroweenies (and Russians), complete with gas.
In fact the Iran/Iraq war gave us ten years breathing room before Iran made itself intolerable again. Cheap at the price, since it didn’t cost us much.
And no Cheney and Bush didn’t tell one lie about WMD.
The Taliban were created by Pakistani intelligence in as a lever to use in their continuing civil war against the Pakistan Army, long after the Mujihadeen had winkled the Soviets out of Afghanistan.
Osama was in competition with the Mujihadeen, seeking to use “Islamic” suicide tactics rather than the surface to air missiles provided by Reagan to the Mujihadeen. After being driven out of Africa, Osama returned to Afghanistan and the Taliban so he could pretend that he wasn’t irrelevant to the Soviets defeat. The Taliban, who were created only after the Soviet defeat, never disagreed with his fantasy.
Under Reagan, the United States won the Cold War.
And you Communists lost the Cold War.
Get over it.
You should have put away the Che Guevara posters a long time ago.
Obama should look at his own party.
Democrats who espoused the principles and policies of Truman, JFK, John Stennis, “Scoop” Jackson, and Zell Miller would no longer be welcome there. The liberal Dems even primaried Joe Lieberman with a peacenik candidate–just a few years after they had nominated him for Vice President.
The Adlai Stevenson wing of the Democratic Party has taken it over.
Everybody relax… Obama is just saying what his handlers told him to say… The empty suit on a constant campaign with TOTUS void of priciple, integrity, and a single plenary thought.
Its always hard to tell if the man believes the words spewing forth or if they just show up on the teleprompter for him to read.
The most divisive party leader ever castigates the opposition for his own intransigence?
I suppose I should no longer be surprised at the cognitive dissonance. That’s reason enough to be an “ex” democrat. HopeEnChange – where Puff the Magic dragon and Sparkly Unicorns are reality.
15-20 years ago Clinton was seen as a liberal and he’s about a thousand times closer to the center than Obama.
Oh, and… “propose both spending cuts and tax increases” …since when has Obama done this? It’s been spending increases and tax cuts (for lower income levels) or spending increases and tax increases (for everyone). Besides, we’ve realized that after a certain point (usually about 25%, give or take a few points), taxes actually REDUCE revenue. So, what would we do? Maybe simplify the tax code and cut loopholes? Like Paul Ryan has proposed, maybe?
Another Hear! Hear! I find it hard to believe Obama would be dumb enough to make these types of statements, though I shouldn’t be. I’ve waited three, long years for that supposed brilliant intellect of Obama’s to peek out and show itself. Instead I’ve heard CORPSEMAN and shout outs at mass killings almost on a weekly basis.
I must assume somebody pens these lines for Obama and he reads off the irreplaceable teleprompter.
The classic Democrat gambit is to propose tax increases and spending cuts. The reality is that the tax increases happen (“Read my lips”) but the spending cuts never do. When revenue increases, spending increases even faster. When revenue decreases, spending goes on as before. Anyone who falls for their gambit is a fool.
If you’re familiar with baseline budgeting, you know how DC plays the game. Instead of zero-based budgeting (where budgets start at zero and have to be justified), DC takes the previous year’s budget and factors in an automatic increase (say 8% for the sake of discussion). Then, the the actual increase is less than 8%, they complain of the budget getting cut. It’s a lie but that’s how they play the game. A real budget cut would be an increase less than the rate of inflation, no increase at all, or horror of horrors an actual reduction.
When the community organizer in chief is not hostile he seems delusional. When he is not trying to sell his vision he is on vacation. When the great divider is not trying to isolate his next enemy he is finding blame in another or taking credit for what goes right. The guy spins like a broken record,which has a double meaning.
ssssshh. Hear that? Its an opportunistic leftist politician coming to terms with the cold reality that he and everything he’s ever believed – is wrong.
“These are solvable problems if people of good faith…
Well that rules out Obama and the American Left, so I guess Obama will just have to go back to picking fights with the Supreme Court. Or playing golf. At least he’s respectable at the latter.
Well, that is the first truth President Downgrade has ever stated.
Of course the reason Reagan would not have made it through the Primary is a POS named romney(obama with a “R”) would have spent tens of millions in every state against Reagan… remember the romney said himself he hated what Reagan stood for.
We’re supposed to think Romney’s first 30 years in politics have no valence.
How about Reagan’s first twenty years or so as a democrat then?
What in Hell is a “valence?”
Ah yes, the Only Good Conservative Is A Dead Conservative gambit. I love when liberals tell me how much modern conservatives should be like conservatives of old. How the sing their praises and tell us how much better they were.
You know, the conservatives that they hated with a blind fury back when they were alive.
It’s a trap!
“The president said his own positions would be considered “squarely centrist” 15 or 20 years ago.”
In Beijing, maybe.
“Obama: Reagan Couldn’t Get Through a GOP Primary Today”
True, Romney would beat him today, it seems. Our “Soviets” will stagger on, not effectively confronted.
Reagan didn’t get through the primaries in ’76. He won in ’80, because he was “next in line”. And lots of “moderates” were worried that the Conservatives would take over the Party. Yes, they actually said such things.
Obama is not being stupid here. It is all about diminishing the other side. He has to make them seem worse than him, not make himself seem better. Accusations carry more weight with people than rational rebuttals, becasue of their emotional impact.
These tactics work. The Right does not understand the negative emotions and their power over people. They do not WANT to understand them. It is too ugly a thing for them to consider. The Left does understand, and they ruthlessly exploit this human failing. it is not stupid, at all… but it is evil.
It is also not a matter of lying. Truth or falsehood do not even merit a consideration from these guys. Meaningless.
A dollar a day, roast beef, and the Chinese must go.
“The challenge we have right now is that we have on one side, a party that will brook no compromise.”
Does that include ALL the Democrats in congress who rejected your budget 0-434 or the Senate 0-82. Considering congress consists of the absolute dregs of humanity stupidity and mendacity that is some achievement, just like nuking the credit rating and spending the country into hyper-inflationary collapse (2014).
Hoax and Chains indeed…
“Mr. Conservative”. Barry Goldwater, wouldn’t make it either. I am not a Reagan fan but the atmosphere in the country did change when those hostages flew back from Iran during the inauguration. Jimmy Carter deserves every bit of the criticism he gets.
He was proinmigration. He signed the amnesty. So Ozero is right
Delenda communisimus.