mercury14
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That's nice. But whenever conservatives get into power they embrace Keynsian economic policies like there's no tomorrow. Are you saying they've been wrong this whole time?
Politics and the US Economy
- Thread starter RightField
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That's nice. But whenever conservatives get into power they embrace Keynsian economic policies like there's no tomorrow. Are you saying they've been wrong this whole time?
Ishmael
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I believe that even Keynes himself would argue against current US fiscal policy. For much the same reasons he argued against the crushing reparations levied against Germany in the aftermath of WWI. (Approx. $785 billion in 2011 dollars. Now there's a familiar number.) He understood that those monies were not coming out of the Kaisers pocket, but out of the pocket of the citizens. He correctly forecast inflation, political chaos, and an even bigger war as a result of that policy. He was notably correct on all points. We, the US, is in a state very similar to Germany post WWI. The T-notes that we are issuing are roughly equivalent to the sum total of reparations and the interest payments are the payments made against those reparations. We can sit and argue over the definition of terms, and I might be accused of not understanding the subtle differences (nuance), but the net effect on the economy is virtually the same. Foreign powers are holding our IOU's far in excess of our ability to repay thereby enslaving the taxpayer and the nation.
Keynes later works, the ones that are currently under fire in some circles, was based on a macro-economic view of economics as it related to a nation. While trade was given lip service, it primarily concerned itself with internal policy. In the world as it currently exists, this is an out-moded view. Perhaps if there were to be some World Economic Regulatory Authority his views might have some relevance, but that entity doesn't exist and thus his views are rendered almost meaningless. It is of little consequence if one government employs Keynes policies when there are others that not only are not, but are actively engaged in countering said policies for their own gains.
What Keynes did recognize that has been more or less accepted as an economic truth is that all economies are demand driven. Demand being defined as the aggregate purchasing power of the entire population of that nation. That purchasing power has two forms, potential and realized. Obviously realized purchasing power is the state where the buyer is comfortable enough about their future (see RightFields post above) that they will invest (buy) goods and services with confidence. Potential purchasing power is the state where there are monies available for the purchase of goods or services, but the buyers are not buying leading to a stagnant economy, one such as we find ourselves in today.
How do you create demand? According to Keynes via direct stimulation of the general populace (tax reduction) and/or via government investment. (For some reason there are many who do not understand that tax reduction IS a government investment.) Wholesale government investment in industry has been a non-starter, not only in the US, but virtually everywhere it's been tried. (Japan, Russia, Spain, the list is long.) The problem is that these investments gravitate to the having to buy off the lowest IQ and/or the least wise in the congress. This leads to short term investments that bear no long term returns. ('Green' is a fine example here. No one in their right mind is going to pay more for something that over the long haul actually costs them more than that which is already available. It's HORRIBLE economic policy. Further, that equipment that is actually viable in the market is now being manufactured in China even further eroding our balance of trade.)
And that brings us to the issue of trade. The days of international demand for our finished goods is over. The same can be said for much of our raw material base as well. About the only thing we export today is food (that which we don't burn due to unwise government policy) and extraordinary high value goods (Boeing is a good example here). Neither of those bring enough hard currency into the nation to offset the currency we are shipping overseas purchasing those goods that we used to manufacture here. One school wants to throw up trade barriers and invoke tariffs, another wants to compete on the world stage.
If we are to compete we are going to have to abandon a great many of the attitudes that the government and activists have instilled in the nations psyche over the past 40 years. You cannot have 100% clean manufacture or resource recovery and compete on the worlds stage. (The debate should center on what is an acceptable number. Is it 80%, 60%, not about the demand for 100%)
If we are to throw up the walls then we can expect to begin to look like the former Soviet Union, the former China, the former India, or oh so many other states that pursued that policy in the past.
What has been saving us over the past 30 years or so is that the US dollar is the de facto worlds currency. We could, and did, print our way out of many of our past problems. But now the Russians, Chinese, and even the EU are making noises to change that. And if the dollar were to be replaced as the worlds currency this nation would fall into a malaise that would take decades to recover from, if we ever did.
The government HAS to stop spending, HAS to begin paying down the debt, and HAS to get out of the way of manufacture. Especially the last. Manufacturing means jobs which means tax revenue flowing into the treasury. Increased taxation doesn't work and has never worked. It's a monkey on the back of the economy. Further, there isn't enough money out there to tax our way out of this.
Returning to Keynes, his theories were never fully embraced prior to WWII. That was especially true in the US except in certain isolated corners of academia. The massive government spending required to prosecute the war led to massive industrial capabilities. And when the last soldier fell the US remained the sole manufacturing super power. The world beat a path to our door step to re-build their economies and purchase our consumer products. We are no longer the industrial super power that we were and China is assuming that mantle. There is nothing that our government can do to stop that short of reducing China, and all other would be competitors, to rubble so as to replicate the post WWII period. Regardless, because of calamitous circumstance Keynesian theory was embraced as the "end all, be all." Forgetting that that was a unique, devastating, and transient period of history. (Ironically the Soviet Union was in a position to compete as far as industrial might. The factories had been built and they most certainly were resource rich. They even had subsumed client states that they could rape for labor and resources. Government policy on their part prevented them from doing so.) Certain political hacks point to the "Golden years" of WWII and the immediate post war period as proofs that Keynesian theory works and higher taxes should be the rule of the day. They are relying on a historical aberration as a base line validation.
Ishmael
Keynes later works, the ones that are currently under fire in some circles, was based on a macro-economic view of economics as it related to a nation. While trade was given lip service, it primarily concerned itself with internal policy. In the world as it currently exists, this is an out-moded view. Perhaps if there were to be some World Economic Regulatory Authority his views might have some relevance, but that entity doesn't exist and thus his views are rendered almost meaningless. It is of little consequence if one government employs Keynes policies when there are others that not only are not, but are actively engaged in countering said policies for their own gains.
What Keynes did recognize that has been more or less accepted as an economic truth is that all economies are demand driven. Demand being defined as the aggregate purchasing power of the entire population of that nation. That purchasing power has two forms, potential and realized. Obviously realized purchasing power is the state where the buyer is comfortable enough about their future (see RightFields post above) that they will invest (buy) goods and services with confidence. Potential purchasing power is the state where there are monies available for the purchase of goods or services, but the buyers are not buying leading to a stagnant economy, one such as we find ourselves in today.
How do you create demand? According to Keynes via direct stimulation of the general populace (tax reduction) and/or via government investment. (For some reason there are many who do not understand that tax reduction IS a government investment.) Wholesale government investment in industry has been a non-starter, not only in the US, but virtually everywhere it's been tried. (Japan, Russia, Spain, the list is long.) The problem is that these investments gravitate to the having to buy off the lowest IQ and/or the least wise in the congress. This leads to short term investments that bear no long term returns. ('Green' is a fine example here. No one in their right mind is going to pay more for something that over the long haul actually costs them more than that which is already available. It's HORRIBLE economic policy. Further, that equipment that is actually viable in the market is now being manufactured in China even further eroding our balance of trade.)
And that brings us to the issue of trade. The days of international demand for our finished goods is over. The same can be said for much of our raw material base as well. About the only thing we export today is food (that which we don't burn due to unwise government policy) and extraordinary high value goods (Boeing is a good example here). Neither of those bring enough hard currency into the nation to offset the currency we are shipping overseas purchasing those goods that we used to manufacture here. One school wants to throw up trade barriers and invoke tariffs, another wants to compete on the world stage.
If we are to compete we are going to have to abandon a great many of the attitudes that the government and activists have instilled in the nations psyche over the past 40 years. You cannot have 100% clean manufacture or resource recovery and compete on the worlds stage. (The debate should center on what is an acceptable number. Is it 80%, 60%, not about the demand for 100%)
If we are to throw up the walls then we can expect to begin to look like the former Soviet Union, the former China, the former India, or oh so many other states that pursued that policy in the past.
What has been saving us over the past 30 years or so is that the US dollar is the de facto worlds currency. We could, and did, print our way out of many of our past problems. But now the Russians, Chinese, and even the EU are making noises to change that. And if the dollar were to be replaced as the worlds currency this nation would fall into a malaise that would take decades to recover from, if we ever did.
The government HAS to stop spending, HAS to begin paying down the debt, and HAS to get out of the way of manufacture. Especially the last. Manufacturing means jobs which means tax revenue flowing into the treasury. Increased taxation doesn't work and has never worked. It's a monkey on the back of the economy. Further, there isn't enough money out there to tax our way out of this.
Returning to Keynes, his theories were never fully embraced prior to WWII. That was especially true in the US except in certain isolated corners of academia. The massive government spending required to prosecute the war led to massive industrial capabilities. And when the last soldier fell the US remained the sole manufacturing super power. The world beat a path to our door step to re-build their economies and purchase our consumer products. We are no longer the industrial super power that we were and China is assuming that mantle. There is nothing that our government can do to stop that short of reducing China, and all other would be competitors, to rubble so as to replicate the post WWII period. Regardless, because of calamitous circumstance Keynesian theory was embraced as the "end all, be all." Forgetting that that was a unique, devastating, and transient period of history. (Ironically the Soviet Union was in a position to compete as far as industrial might. The factories had been built and they most certainly were resource rich. They even had subsumed client states that they could rape for labor and resources. Government policy on their part prevented them from doing so.) Certain political hacks point to the "Golden years" of WWII and the immediate post war period as proofs that Keynesian theory works and higher taxes should be the rule of the day. They are relying on a historical aberration as a base line validation.
Ishmael
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if you want others to pay more taxes, why don't you send uncle obama a check for $10,000.....maybe $100,000?
man up! take the skirt off, I can see your pink panties from here
RightField
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I feel like Bugs Bunny talking to Elmer Fudd.
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Ishmael
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Oh, I think it's more a case of Bugs talking to Daffy Duck. Elmer did occasionally show rational thought.
Ishmael
RightField
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Liberals’ unmaking of Barack Obama
President enters predictable free-fall from godlike to Carteresque
Dr. Milton R. Wolf
The Washington Times
7:05 p.m., Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Remember when liberals claimed Barack Obama was "probably the smartest guy ever to become president" and was "a sort of god"? Today they say "we are watching him turn into Jimmy Carter right before our eyes," and the center point of his presidency is "a disaster." So what changed exactly?
Is President Obama really a different man today than he was before he entered the Oval Office? The same Illinois legislator who voted "present" 129 times is now the debt-crisis-AWOL president who refused to present a specific plan of his own. The same presidential candidate who wanted to "spread the wealth" has unleashed redistributionist, collectivist policies on everything from health care and energy supply to runaway Keynesian spending and ever-increasing taxes. Should we be surprised?
The president may still win re-election in 2012, of course, but in recent weeks, his approval rating has crumbled, particularly among liberals, to an all-time low of 40 percent in a recent Gallup poll. Another poll shows that even among liberal Democrats, strong support for Mr. Obama's record on jobs has plummeted 22 points, to a paltry 31 percent. The hope and change of 2008 have given way to the joblessness and foreclosures of Obamanomics.
The only thing worse than the abject failure of a liberal president, at least in the eyes of the liberal, is the undeniable failure of liberalism itself. To claim Mr. Obama has been a good president no longer even remotely passes the laugh test. Consider the results thus far of the Obama presidency:
What's worse, and was as easily predictable, is the systematic dishonesty Team Obama unleashed to persuade Americans to tolerate its big-government, collectivist agenda. America is, after all, a center-right nation with nearly 3-to-1 self-described conservatives compared to liberals. How else besides trickery could Mr. Obama further an agenda so unpopular with voters? Witness the dishonesty:
So, as the liberal presidency of Mr. Obama becomes increasingly indefensible, the liberal is faced with an unthinkable dilemma: acknowledge the fundamental failure of his collectivist liberal philosophy, which tends toward socialism, or blame its failures on a single man whom, until just recently, the liberal deified.
The conflict between liberal collectivist ideology and its application was easily predictable by anyone who has studied big-government economic failures throughout history, from the collectivist all-stars including Mao's China, Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union to today's honorable mentions such as Castro's Cuba or Chavez's Venezuela. Enforcement of collectivism has always depended on government power, from Stalin's iron-fisted gulags to Mr. Obama's mere heavy-handed plan for punitive fines for failure to purchase your government-imposed health insurance. The degree of autocracy may vary, but still the collectivist road to economic ruin is universal.
Here's what I wrote one year ago:
"As President Obama's failures mount, there will be an awkward reversal of roles among liberals, and to a lesser degree, among conservatives, that we're already beginning to see. It will be the liberals, rather than the conservatives, who will decry this man as personally incompetent. In the collapse of the social-welfare state, the last bastion for these scoundrels will be to sacrifice their own anointed deity as though it is his personal failures, rather than the inherent deep flaws of statism, that are to blame. Of course, one must ask how valuable an ideology can be if one man, even (or perhaps especially) a flawed man, can destroy it.
"Conservatives will then find themselves in the uncomfortable position of defending Barack Obama personally, or at least reminding the liberals of their earlier effusive praise, in order to redirect the blame where it primarily belongs - at the feet of the statist policies themselves. The liberals will be left to explain, of course, how valuable the liberal ideology itself really is if even a learned and godlike leader cannot manage it. Further, if Barack Obama turns out not to be the deity they once claimed, what does that say of the liberals' perception (and honesty) when they eventually anoint another?"
This cycle of liberal, cannibalistic personal destruction is the predictable result of the Democrats' cult-of-personality politics. Those purveyors of big-government rule are the mob that Ann Coulter described in her recent book "Demonic," quoting Gustave Le Bon from a century ago, that "knows neither doubt nor uncertainty ... it goes at once to extremes." The absurdity of liberals' deification and then condemnation of their own leaders is second only to their unwillingness to confront the failures of their collectivist philosophy.
In the end, Barack Obama's failures as president are not because he couldn't faithfully execute the liberal collectivist philosophy - he ushered in the Obamacare era, after all - his failures are instead because he bought into the failed philosophy in the first place.
Dr. Milton R. Wolf is a board-certified diagnostic radiologist and cousin of President Obama. He blogs at MiltonWolf.com.
President enters predictable free-fall from godlike to Carteresque
Dr. Milton R. Wolf
The Washington Times
7:05 p.m., Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Remember when liberals claimed Barack Obama was "probably the smartest guy ever to become president" and was "a sort of god"? Today they say "we are watching him turn into Jimmy Carter right before our eyes," and the center point of his presidency is "a disaster." So what changed exactly?
Is President Obama really a different man today than he was before he entered the Oval Office? The same Illinois legislator who voted "present" 129 times is now the debt-crisis-AWOL president who refused to present a specific plan of his own. The same presidential candidate who wanted to "spread the wealth" has unleashed redistributionist, collectivist policies on everything from health care and energy supply to runaway Keynesian spending and ever-increasing taxes. Should we be surprised?
The president may still win re-election in 2012, of course, but in recent weeks, his approval rating has crumbled, particularly among liberals, to an all-time low of 40 percent in a recent Gallup poll. Another poll shows that even among liberal Democrats, strong support for Mr. Obama's record on jobs has plummeted 22 points, to a paltry 31 percent. The hope and change of 2008 have given way to the joblessness and foreclosures of Obamanomics.
The only thing worse than the abject failure of a liberal president, at least in the eyes of the liberal, is the undeniable failure of liberalism itself. To claim Mr. Obama has been a good president no longer even remotely passes the laugh test. Consider the results thus far of the Obama presidency:
- Two million-private sector jobs have been lost.
- Unemployment jumped from 7.8 to 9.2 percent with a simply terrible 2011 first-quarter economic growth rate of just 0.4 percent.
- A record 1 in 7 Americans is on food stamps.
- Gasoline prices more than doubled, from $1.83 to $3.74 per gallon.
- National debt increased 35 percent, to $14.5 trillion, or $137,000 for each taxpayer.
- National unfunded liabilities increased 47 percent, to $114.9 trillion, or a cool $1 million for each taxpayer (and this does not yet include Obamacare).
- America is on the verge of losing its AAA credit rating.
What's worse, and was as easily predictable, is the systematic dishonesty Team Obama unleashed to persuade Americans to tolerate its big-government, collectivist agenda. America is, after all, a center-right nation with nearly 3-to-1 self-described conservatives compared to liberals. How else besides trickery could Mr. Obama further an agenda so unpopular with voters? Witness the dishonesty:
- The stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent.
- Stimulus funds would go to "shovel-ready" jobs.
- Obamacare would create 4 million new jobs - 400,000 almost immediately.
- You could keep your own doctor.
- The president's mother was denied health insurance.
- Obamanomics would mean a "net spending cut."
So, as the liberal presidency of Mr. Obama becomes increasingly indefensible, the liberal is faced with an unthinkable dilemma: acknowledge the fundamental failure of his collectivist liberal philosophy, which tends toward socialism, or blame its failures on a single man whom, until just recently, the liberal deified.
The conflict between liberal collectivist ideology and its application was easily predictable by anyone who has studied big-government economic failures throughout history, from the collectivist all-stars including Mao's China, Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union to today's honorable mentions such as Castro's Cuba or Chavez's Venezuela. Enforcement of collectivism has always depended on government power, from Stalin's iron-fisted gulags to Mr. Obama's mere heavy-handed plan for punitive fines for failure to purchase your government-imposed health insurance. The degree of autocracy may vary, but still the collectivist road to economic ruin is universal.
Here's what I wrote one year ago:
"As President Obama's failures mount, there will be an awkward reversal of roles among liberals, and to a lesser degree, among conservatives, that we're already beginning to see. It will be the liberals, rather than the conservatives, who will decry this man as personally incompetent. In the collapse of the social-welfare state, the last bastion for these scoundrels will be to sacrifice their own anointed deity as though it is his personal failures, rather than the inherent deep flaws of statism, that are to blame. Of course, one must ask how valuable an ideology can be if one man, even (or perhaps especially) a flawed man, can destroy it.
"Conservatives will then find themselves in the uncomfortable position of defending Barack Obama personally, or at least reminding the liberals of their earlier effusive praise, in order to redirect the blame where it primarily belongs - at the feet of the statist policies themselves. The liberals will be left to explain, of course, how valuable the liberal ideology itself really is if even a learned and godlike leader cannot manage it. Further, if Barack Obama turns out not to be the deity they once claimed, what does that say of the liberals' perception (and honesty) when they eventually anoint another?"
This cycle of liberal, cannibalistic personal destruction is the predictable result of the Democrats' cult-of-personality politics. Those purveyors of big-government rule are the mob that Ann Coulter described in her recent book "Demonic," quoting Gustave Le Bon from a century ago, that "knows neither doubt nor uncertainty ... it goes at once to extremes." The absurdity of liberals' deification and then condemnation of their own leaders is second only to their unwillingness to confront the failures of their collectivist philosophy.
In the end, Barack Obama's failures as president are not because he couldn't faithfully execute the liberal collectivist philosophy - he ushered in the Obamacare era, after all - his failures are instead because he bought into the failed philosophy in the first place.
Dr. Milton R. Wolf is a board-certified diagnostic radiologist and cousin of President Obama. He blogs at MiltonWolf.com.
mercury14
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Want me to list out Keynsian policies that Republicans have recently implemented and swear are good ideas? Let me know and I'll toss out half a dozen of them just off the top of my head.
Why are you such a hypocrite?
lustatopia
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Hey, Elmer you just don't get it.
Keynsian economic policy has failed. Period.
Doesn't matter who was for it in the past. Why does pointing out that in the past RHINOs have supported the same kind of economic illiteracy that Obama is committed to justifies the continuation of the same kind of idiocy today?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9S7yhD5M9A
lustatopia
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That's a great article by Dr. Wolf. But I think he's wrong about the Liberal collectivists throwing Obama under the bus. They're going to go for broke this time around. The so called "Progressives" going to use the fact that Obama is black to declare his failure as President is due to racism only. That's all they got. The race card. Yeah, I know, you thought it was over drawn already, but that won't stop them.
Socialism in the shape of East Germany and the Soviet Union was defeated a generation ago by Ronald Reagan with America at his back. I guess socialists need to have their ass kicked once a generation. Obama was suppose to be the new Mao, the supreme leader come to create a socialist utopia in America. It was not to be. Not because America didn't give him a chance, not because Obama didn't try, but because socialism simply doesn't work.
Now Obama is going to become the new martyr for socialist "progressives" brought down by the racist hate of white America. And they will demand revenge for this imagined act. Nothing less than the sacrifice of our cities on the bonfire of looting and rioting that will occur if Obama looks to be losing the 2012 election.
We have seen our future in London this week. The summer of 2012 approaches.
RobDownSouth
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Oh, NOW I see....if one of your "buddies" calls you something, it MUST be true.
Got it!
So, AJ, if one of your buddies called you a child molester....
mercury14
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Nobody's talking about RINOs. Stop your spin. I'm talking about Republicans from all backgrounds. Would you like me to demonstrate?
Saying things like "Keynsian economic policy has failed" and then substituting the word 'period' in instead of evidence really doesn't say much about the merits of your argument, does it? People who use such language almost always do so because they lack the evidence to back their argument. Or they read it on an NRO blog.
BTW, It's RINO, not Rhino. Rhinos are African animals with horns.
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mercury14
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My, we like using labels instead of rational debate, don't we? And here you are again making baseless, sweeping generalizations such as "socialism doesn't work", and brain-dead lines such as "Obama was supposed to be the new Mao", which is a famous Glenn Beck stance.
Not only that but you don't even believe your own argument. Do you think Medicare saves lives and is worth keeping at least in some form? Then you believe socialism works.
RobDownSouth
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Have you noticed the marked increase in "faith-based jingoism" with the current bunch of wingnuts (Amicus, Eyer, Lustopia, et al)?
Long on belief and opinion, short of facts and logic.
lustatopia
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Oh, come on, Mercury and Rob... as if I were to present outstanding evidence for Hayek's economics you would say, "Ohhhh, I see the light, the evidence is impeccable. I'm convince. Obama is wrong."
The evidence is on the Tee Vee, dudes. Watch London Burn. Greece Burn. Watch Wall Street burn. Coming to your TV soon, America burns.
Dude you are true believers in statist collectivism (that's the nice way to say you're thieving control freaks who covets what your neighbors got that you don't.) Nothing will ever change your minds, short of a good blast of tear gas, but even then only for the day....
I'll bet like your pal Sean, you'd even like to see American cities burned and looted if you don't get your way.
Maybe a rap tune will help sort things out for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk
But you do know what a RINO is, I'll give you that much
J
JAMESBJOHNSON
Guest
Back in the beginning government limited its work to tasks that affected the commonwealth. It removed snags from rivers, it dredged harbors and channels, it built forts and arsenals, it built roads and bridges. Today it wipes your ass and holds your hand and picks your pocket.
mercury14
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That's because Amicus and Lustopia are alts.
1) When Amicus takes the night off we get Lustopia.
2) Both argue the same way with that preposterous cocktail of certainty despite a shocking lack of evidence. Or even attempts to provide evidence...
3) Both have identical beliefs.
4) Both have the same distinct, flowery writing style.
5) Both post in the format of several one or two sentence paragraphs. Same writing habits.
6) Lustopia's account was opened at about the same time Amicus started spending time on GB.
I'd say they're almost certainly the same person.
Frisco_Slug_Esq
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When, in your opinion, was the last time CONSERVATIVES were in power?
Additionally, define what you mean by CONSERVATIVE.
Frisco_Slug_Esq
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There's way more proof that you engage in multiple alts.
Frisco_Slug_Esq
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So now, you're changing from CONSERVATIVES to REPUBLICANS...
So, in short, you cannot prove that CONSERVATIVES embrace Keynes, only that REPUBLICANS do, therefore, it's probably true that REPUBLICANS are not CONSERVATIVES and that kinda knocks the wind out of the fallacy you employ...
mercury14
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Republicans call themselves conservatives and they implement mostly conservative policy. They run for office as conservatives and conservatives vote for them. Therefore they're most accurately described by the term "conservative". Calling them independents of liberals doesn't make much sense, does it?
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RightField
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He's just twisting meanings around trying to confuse and once again making a big deal out of a meaningless "side trail".
Democrats engage in irresponsible spending and have spent too much in the last four and five years (since gaining control of Congress) that they've precipitated this deficit crisis we're in. I liked the quote from the debate, saying that the tea party is responsible for this financial crisis we're in is like saying the Betty Ford Clinic is responsible for alcholism.
Democrats engage in irresponsible spending and have spent too much in the last four and five years (since gaining control of Congress) that they've precipitated this deficit crisis we're in. I liked the quote from the debate, saying that the tea party is responsible for this financial crisis we're in is like saying the Betty Ford Clinic is responsible for alcholism.
RightField
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The democrats are trying to systematically put the valuable lessons that Ronald Reagan taught us back into the closet and hope that people for get about them because they go against the mantra of maximizing government control of everything. The dems are trying to convince us that rising taxes and more government control are the tonic to our bad economy, but these are the very things that Reagan resisted. Carter told us the the bad economy was just due to the natural progression of economic history and foreign competition and that we'd just better get used to the natural decline.
During the debate, Carter tried to make many of the same points that the democrats are making now in trying to discredit Republican economic plans and his response was "There you go again"
The democrats said that pro-growth policies of moderating the amount of money that goes into welfare (providing a safety net that is a safety net and not a way of life), lower taxes, lower spending (though he couldn't convince congress to go along with that one) and strong defense would keep our country employed and diplomentially relevant. The democrats laughed...right up to election and for the next 25 years when their philosophy of trimming government power, spending and regulations and leaving money in the hands of "the people" worked and created an unprecedented growth in employment, standards of living and wealth for our country.
During the debate, Carter tried to make many of the same points that the democrats are making now in trying to discredit Republican economic plans and his response was "There you go again"
The democrats said that pro-growth policies of moderating the amount of money that goes into welfare (providing a safety net that is a safety net and not a way of life), lower taxes, lower spending (though he couldn't convince congress to go along with that one) and strong defense would keep our country employed and diplomentially relevant. The democrats laughed...right up to election and for the next 25 years when their philosophy of trimming government power, spending and regulations and leaving money in the hands of "the people" worked and created an unprecedented growth in employment, standards of living and wealth for our country.
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J
JAMESBJOHNSON
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Ron Reagan presided over huge government spending and new laws that hold our hands, wipe our asses, and pick our pockets. By 1988 most social service agencies were awash in money approved by Reagan. Government swelled like a Good Year blimp.
Folks liked Ron cuz he was clueless about things like communion wafers and finger-bowls. He was a good-old proletariat who shared his midnight refrigerator raids with the secret service boys.
Folks liked Ron cuz he was clueless about things like communion wafers and finger-bowls. He was a good-old proletariat who shared his midnight refrigerator raids with the secret service boys.
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RightField
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2003
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Reagan's promise and goal was to reduce spending, but he had to "make deals" with the Democrat-controlled Congress and had to make tradeoffs much like Obama had to make tradeoffs to get a debt deal through recently.
J
JAMESBJOHNSON
Guest
I get all that, but there's no evidence that Reagan differed from Lyndon Johnson, cuz their results were identical. Ditto for Dubya.
Conservatives my ass!
