Ambrose should look at history

By Greg Grant, Las Vegas

Monday, Nov. 17, 2014 | 2 a.m.

As a historian and history teacher, I take issue many conclusions made in Jay Ambrose’s column “Republicans’ victories are a good opportunity for Obama” (Nov. 9).

First, Ambrose painted Sen. Harry Reid as the architect of stalemate. However, the GOP of the past 20 years has been pushing a radical right-wing agenda, and compromise would move the country radically rightward. Reid is right to hold the center.

Second, Ambrose intimates that the Democratic losses in the election are a result of some sweeping mandate in favor of conservative Republican positions. However, midterm elections historically feature low voter turnout and congressional losses for the party of a second-term president. Further, many left-leaning Democrats and independent voters were so disenchanted with center-right Democrats that they either stayed home or voted “none of these candidates.”

Regarding tax reform: For the GOP, “tax reform” is a euphemism meaning “tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.” Tax rates for the wealthiest Americans are about as low as they’ve been since the 1920s, so why should the president compromise, especially since the concept of trickle-down, has failed since the 1980s?

Finally, the national debt is largely the doing of the Republicans, who since the late 1980s have used a combination of increased military spending and tax cuts to create a fiscal crisis, and then used that as an excuse to dismantle the social safety net.

Ambrose’s one point with which I agree is that the president shouldn’t rely on executive orders to accomplish what should, and historically would, be accomplished by simple legislation.