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Feb. 8, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Lofty ideals must be followed with grounded applications

Clifford D. May: Letter from the West Bank
Steve Rothaus: Judge OKs plan for gay man, lesbian couple to be on girl's birth certificate
Gloria Goodale: States consider drone bans: Overreaction or crucial for privacy rights?
Environmental Nutrition Editors: Don't buy the aloe vera juice hype
Michael Craig Miller, M.D.: Harvard Experts: Regular exercise pumps up memory, too
Erik Lacitis: Vanity plates: Some take too much license
The Kosher Gourmet by Susie Middleton: Broccoflower, Carrot and Leek Ragout with Thyme, Orange and Tapenade is a delightful and satisfying melange of veggies, herbs and aromatics
Feb. 6, 2013

Nara Schoenberg: The other in-law problem

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. : A see-no-jihadist for the CIA
Kristen Chick: Ahmadinejad visits Cairo: How sect tempers Islamist ties between Egypt, Iran
Roger Simon: Ed Koch's lucky corner
Heron Marquez Estrada: Robot-building sports on a roll
Patrick G. Dean, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: How to restore body's ability to secrete insulin
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: 3 prostate-protecting diet tips
The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen 7 principles for to help you make the best soup ever in a slow cooker
Feb. 4, 2013

Jonathan Tobin: Can Jewish Groups Speak Out on Hagel?

David Wren: Findings of government study, released 3 days before Newtown shooting, at odds with gun-control crusaders
Kristen Chick: Tahrir becomes terrifying, tainted
Curtis Tate and Greg Gordon: US keeps building new highways while letting old ones crumble
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to hear case on arrests, DNA
Harvard Health Letters: Neck and shoulder pain? Know what it means and what to do
Andrea N. Giancoli, M.P.H., R.D.: Eat your way to preventing age-related muscle loss
The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington Baked Pears in Red Wine and Port Wine Glaze: A festive winter dessert
Feb. 1, 2013

Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: Redemption

Clifford D. May Home, bloody, home
Christa Case Bryant andNicholas Blanford Why despite Syria's allies warning of retaliation for Israeli airstrikes, the threats are likely hollow
Rick Armon, Ed Meyer and Phil Trexler Ex-police captain cleared by DNA test is freed after nearly 15 years
Harvard Health Letters: Could it by your thyroid?
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: When 'healthy food' isn't
Sue Zeidler: Coke ad racist? Arab-American groups want to yank Super Bowl ad (INCLUDES VIDEO)
The Kosher Gourmet by Nealey Dozier The secret of this soup is the garnish
January 30, 2013

Allan Chernoff: Celebrating 'Back from the Dead Day'

America isn't a religious country? Don't tell Superbowl fans!
Mark Clayton Cybercrime takedown!
Germany remembers Hitler rise to power
Israel salutes U. N. --- with the one finger salute
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: Get cookin' with heart-healthy fats
Ballot riles Guinness World Records
The Kosher Gourmet by Elizabeth Passarella Potato, Squash and Goat Cheese Gratin
January 28, 2013

Nancy Youssef: And Democracy for all? Two years on, Egypt remains in state of chaos

Fred Weir: Putin: West is fomenting jihadi 'blowback'
Meredith Cohn: Implantable pain disk may help those with cancer
Michael Craig Miller, M.D. : Ask the Harvard Experts: Are there drugs to help control binge eating?
David Ovalle Use of controversial 'brain mapping' technology stymied
Jane Stancill: Professor's logic class has 180,000 friends
David Clark Scott Lego Racism?
The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali The celebrated chef introduces us to PANZEROTTI PUGLIESI, cheese-stuffed pastry from Italy's south


Jewish World Review Oct. 13, 2009 / 25 Tishrei 5770

Can Obama Rise to Harding's Level?

By Mona Charen


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Picture this: It is midnight on Nov. 4, 2009. The previous day's elections in Virginia, New York's 23rd congressional district, and New Jersey have all been won by Republicans. Health reform is stalled. The latest employment numbers are still dismaying. President Obama cannot sleep. He paces the halls of the White House and comes upon a portrait of Warren Harding. Since President Obama is nothing if not a receptacle of received understanding, he would probably snort "Harding! What a disaster he was! Cronyism. Laissez-faire economics. Corruption. Incompetence."


Well, it's true that Teapot Dome and other scandals engulfed the Harding administration in 1923. And that's pretty much all that popular histories remember about the 29th president. Harding died in office before he could restore his reputation. But if his portrait could talk, it might remind President Obama of a few things he could take to heart.


When Harding took office in 1921, the U.S. economy was in a far worse depression than President Obama inherited. A savage inflation had eroded buying power and unemployment stood at 20 percent. The U.S. had suffered more than 116,000 dead and 205,000 wounded in the war. Additionally, 650,000 mostly young and productive Americans had been killed by the Spanish flu. Between 1920 and 1921, GDP had declined 24 percent from $91.5 billion to $69.6 billion. Civil liberties had been trampled under the Wilson administration. Wilson had jailed socialist leader Eugene V. Debs, for example, for opposing the U.S. role in World War I. "With the exception of Lincoln," wrote The Nation magazine, "probably no president in our national history has taken office with as pressing a burden of unresolved questions."


With advice from Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, President Harding set about reducing the government's role in the economy. He cut federal spending from the bloated Wilsonian level of $6.3 billion in 1920 to $5 billion in 1921, and then to $3.2 billion in 1922. Federal taxes were cut from $6.6 billion in 1920 to $5.5 billion in 1921 and $4 billion in 1922.


Unlike his Commerce Secretary, Herbert Hoover, an enthusiast of government intervention in the economy who pushed for a Conference on Unemployment, Harding believed that "we need vastly more freedom than we do regulation."


Harding, a Republican, not only pardoned and freed the socialist Eugene Debs, who had been prosecuted by the Democrat Wilson; he invited Debs to the White House.


Within a few months of the Harding economic reform plan passing Congress, the economy began to revive. By 1922, the GDP had jumped to $74.1 billion and would continue its dramatic rise every year until 1930. Unemployment plunged to 6.7 percent and continued to drop. In 1926, the unemployment rate reached 1.6 percent, a record unmatched in peacetime. The Roaring '20s were on.


President Obama and others of a social Democrat cast of mind tend to remember the '20s only by the way they closed. But that period of prosperity was a remarkable achievement for any nation. As Jim Powell, author of "FDR's Folly," noted (quoting historians Richard Vedder and Lowell Galloway): "'The seven years from the autumn of 1922 to the autumn of 1929 were arguably the brightest period in the economic history of the United States. Virtually all the measures of economic well-being suggested that the economy had reached new heights in terms of prosperity and the achievement of improvements in human welfare. Real gross national product increased every year, consumer prices were stable (as measured by the consumer price index), real wages rose as a consequence of productivity advance, stock prices tripled. Automobile production in 1929 was almost precisely double the level of 1922. It was in the twenties that Americans bought their first car, their first radio, made their first long-distance telephone call, took their first out-of-state vacation. This was the decade when America entered 'the age of mass consumption.'"


As President Obama continues his midnight stroll in the White House, he can ponder the fact that his economic policies have or promise to: a) increase taxes on the job-creating sectors of the economy; b) increase energy costs to businesses and individuals; c) increase the size and expense of government; d) increase health care spending (don't kid yourself); e) increase union power and thus the cost of labor; and f) double the national debt over the next 10 years.


It's looking like he cannot touch Warren Harding.

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