Obama vs. Reagan on government

David Jackson | USA TODAY

President Obama spoke in California on Thursday, so it seemed only natural he would engage in a debate with the ghost of Ronald Reagan.

Arguing that political gridlock is hurting efforts to help the economy, Obama told Democratic donors in Palo Alto that "Washington is getting in our way of this progress -- and the reason it's getting in our way is not because, as some suggest, government has no role to play in this process; government has always had a role to play."

Later, Obama said: "The reason that Washington is a problem is not because government generically is the problem; the reason Washington is a problem is right now it's broken."

Both comments echo and challenge one of the pillars of Reagan's political philosophy, that government gets in the way of economic development through excessive taxation and regulation.

In his 1981 inaugural address, President Reagan said: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

He added: "From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?"

It's an old debate, one that took place in Reagan's elections of 1980 and 1984, and Obama's elections of 2008 and 2012.

And it will probably continue into 2016 and 2020 as well.