Democratic Party Implodes

[bobblehead]

hmmm...we changed directions....what about the completely ficticious rather report about bush??

Again, I hate this stuff as it sways us from the issues. I don't care about michelle obama hating whitey, I honestly don't, but his stances on the issues disturbs me. Mainly the capital gains thing. I mean, he will raise the tax to 28% then 3 years later he will complain that those dang companies keep moving out of america. He'll complain that the economy can't move forward because unethical people are sending their capital to other countries stimulating those economies.

We should be trying to make america a haven for capital investment, not punish it. You can hate the rich all you want, but don't whine when they export your job cuz you continually tried to punish them.

[sheepshead]

hmmm...we changed directions....what about the completely ficticious rather report about bush??

Again, I hate this stuff as it sways us from the issues. I don't care about michelle obama hating whitey, I honestly don't, but his stances on the issues disturbs me. Mainly the capital gains thing. I mean, he will raise the tax to 28% then 3 years later he will complain that those dang companies keep moving out of america. He'll complain that the economy can't move forward because unethical people are sending their capital to other countries stimulating those economies.

We should be trying to make america a haven for capital investment, not punish it. You can hate the rich all you want, but don't whine when they export your job cuz you continually tried to punish them.

Before we can eliminate him on the issues, we are entitled to eliminate him as a person, as a man. On his resume (or lack there of). Just because radical liberals have nominated him doesnt mean the rest of us arent allowed to question his background and where his head's at. Which we intend to do for the next six months. It's just getting started, trust me, the RNC has much more money than the reported Obama war chest. It's just in a different bucket.

[hoosier]

Not sure what your point is on the gov't growing more under reagan...you mean he cut taxes and the economy grew a lot, therefore revenues came in much higher and the democratic congress found ways to spend the money?? Your right, gratz.

One other detail, how are you measuring it grew more under reagan...real dollars, percent of gnp, dollars according to the index?? That kind of blanket statement can be interpreted a few ways and I can't really argue it unless I know the basis. It has probably grown much more under bush than reagan.

I'm talking about two things: federal spending and programmatic/institutional expansion.

Spending: the idea that government spending grew under Reagan because of increased revenues is absurd. Reagan's budgets were never grounded in fiscal reality. He redefined the notion of deficit spending (I say "he," not Congress, because it was Reagan who was proposing budgets and, let's see, how many times did Congress go against him in his first term and a half???). Here are some numbers from the (conservative) Cato Institute from a 1983 article:

Table 1
Year Federal Spending Percent Change Percent Change Since 1961
1961 $97.8 - -
1965 118.4 21 21
1969 183.6 55 88
1973 245.6 34 151
1977 400.5 63 310
1981 657.2 64 572
1982 est. 742.3 13 659
1983 est. 827.0 11 746

(Source: Budget of the United States Government, 1983; Congressional Budget Office estimates)

Spending has already risen more than 500 percent since 1961, and it will undoubtedly rise more than 700 percent by 1983. The increase has been continuous in both Democratic and Republican administrations, with the budget roughly doubling under Kennedy-Johnson and more than doubling again under Nixon-Ford. The 64 percent increase in four years under President Carter was only slightly more rapid than the 117 percent in eight years under his Republican predecessors. Of course, inflation accounts for some of the rise, as Table 2 demonstrates.

Table 2
Year Federal Spending (constant 1981 Dollars) Percent Change Percent Change Since 1961
1961 297.3 - -
1965 341.3 15 15
1969 455.5 34 53
1973 502.6 10 69
1977 601.1 20 102
1981 657.2 9 121
1982 est. 690.6 5 132
1983 est. 719.7 4 142

(Source: Budget of the United States Government, 1983; Congressional Budget Office estimates; Bureau of Labor Statistics)

While the rise in spending seems not quite so dramatic when we account for inflation, the fact remains that federal spending has more than doubled in real terms since the Kennedy administration, and the increases are not significantly different today from their earlier levels. Indeed, the real increases between 1981 and 1983 are likely to be larger than the increase from 1980 to 1981, President Carter's last full budget.

https://<a href="http://www.cato.org...pub_id=879</a>

Program expansion: here is an excerpt from a self-described Libertarian blogger who presents himself as a purist living in the midst of Democratic and Republican proponents of Big Government. You might decide to disqualify his POV on the grounds that he hates whoever's in power, but he does raise some interesting points:

Enter Ronald Reagan – a man that personifies the deceptive façades and realities of the modern Republican Party. Reagan began acquiring his undeserved good reputation as a champion of liberty in the 1950s, when General Electric hired him to tour the country and talk about free enterprise – a topic that neither Reagan, a devout New Dealer and former president of the Screen Actors Guild Union, nor General Electric, a top player in the military-industrial complex, had a true, heart-felt passion for or interest in.

As governor of California, Reagan signed into law the largest tax increase in state history as well as the most egregious modern gun control law in state history – the 1967 Mulford Act, authored by a Republican, which prohibited the carrying of firearms on one’s person or in a vehicle or on a public street. The California budget grew at a much faster rate under Reagan than under either Democrat Pat Brown before him or Democrat Jerry Brown after him.

As president, Reagan increased government spending through the roof. Federal spending totaled $590 billion in fiscal year 1980; by 1988, Reagan’s last year, it rose to $1.14 trillion. Under Reagan, the national debt climbed from less than $800 billion to more than $2 trillion. Although some people like to attribute this to "defense spending," that’s largely a myth, and irrelevant to the question of sheer government size, anyway.

Reagan cut taxes on high-income brackets, but he also dramatically raised payroll taxes, causing tax revenues to go up. At any rate, his spending nearly doubled the size of government. Since all spending increases are tax increases, whether in the form of direct taxation or inflation, Reagan must be seen as a tax raiser. Unfortunately, this doesn’t register with all conservatives, who learned from Reagan the neo-Keynsian mantra that "deficits don’t matter."

Reagan also pumped up the War on Drugs. The number of drug offenders in federal prison rose from about six thousand in 1980 to more than twenty-two thousand in 1988; the percentage of inmates in federal prison for drug offenses increased from 25% to 44% during Reagan’s two terms.

In spite of his lip service to free trade, Reagan was an ardent protectionist who strengthened the fraudulent Export-Import Bank and imposed horrendous tariffs and quotas on everything from electronics to clothespins to motorcycles to sugar. Despite his getting credit for deregulation, he only continued what Carter had begun. Despite his promises to eliminate the Departments of Energy and Education as well as the Selective Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, President Reagan abolished none of these, or any other major bureaucracies, and actually inflated them, for the most part.

Reagan was also a shameless interventionist, bombing Libya, militarily assisting both Iran and its enemy Iraq, illegally supporting thugs in Latin America, and invading Grenada. Despite the Cold War mythology, the USSR fell under the weight of central planning, not because of Reagan. It is absurd to credit Reagan’s central planning as a paragon of economic liberty that defeated Communism by example, or to think his militarism kept Americans safe.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory40.html

[bobblehead]

I'll say one thing to start off and thats that you got me wrong. I mostly agree with said libertarian blogger (economically), and thought I had made my point of view very clear throughout. The difference is that I still think republicans are far the lesser of two evils. I guess my flippant remard about reagan undid about 5 hours worth of posts I made in the past.

That being said if I'm reading your chart 2 right, it is putting all dollars in terms of 1981 dollars and it shows that growth dropped to single digits under reagan. That being said I have always bagged on reagan for threepoints, one is raising payroll taxes as the blogger points out, next is outspending his own good policies, and last is signing the original amnesty act into law in 1986.

That being said his deficit spending had an explicit purpose, he was fighting a war of economy with the communist soviet union, basically proving we could handle more debt (through military spending) before collapsing than they could....we won. Problem is that now people like bush think eternal deficits aren't a problem...I've been very clear, i think they are.
sidenote: he also allowed more spending than he wanted because it was a negotiation to allow him all the military spending.

Revenues under reagan (to the gov't) went from 599 billion to 909 billion. Thats a big increase. You also have to acknowledge that when reagan took office inflation was 12 percent and interest rates were thru the roof. He had a big job in front of him. By 1983 inflation had dropped to 3.8.

Now, all that being said, I agree with you that often republicans get carried away with reagan, he was good, but gingrich was better.

Problem for reagan, and bush, and the next president is that a lot of the budget and its increases are built in already and nobody is doing anything about it. Something like 75% of the budget is predetermined already and only about 25% is discretionary spending.

[swede]

you STILL are complaining about the Swift Boaters. They were CORRECT--so much so that Kerry couldn't even respond to them. He really DID phony up his three Purple Hearts because that is what it took to get sent home. Similar truth squad-type attacks on Obama will undoubtedly be disparaged by libs too, but that won't diminish the truth of them--

Kerry got two of his Purple Hearts within 24 hours of each other! In one instance he had been blamming his big machine gun into the river bank for a less than a clear purpose when a piece of metal ricocheted back and cut him on the arm. One band-aid and one more purple heart to add to the legend that was Kerry in Viet Nam.

I like the term "swiftboating". But to me it doesn't mean an untruthful attack. It means having the truth suddenly shoved into your face like a cream pie.

[texaspackerbacker]

Amen, Swede.

One of the primary "Swiftboaters" was the doctor who "treated" Kerry.

[hoosier]

That being said if I'm reading your chart 2 right, it is putting all dollars in terms of 1981 dollars and it shows that growth dropped to single digits under reagan. That being said I have always bagged on reagan for threepoints, one is raising payroll taxes as the blogger points out, next is outspending his own good policies, and last is signing the original amnesty act into law in 1986.

It shows that increases in federal spending "dropped" to single digits under Reagan, but if you look closely at the chart you'll notice that increases before Reagan are calibrated over four year periods whereas under Reagan increases are measured every year. Increases of 5 and 4 percent per year are not significantly different from what we see between 1965-80 under LBJ, RMN, GF and JC.

[hoosier]

That being said his deficit spending had an explicit purpose, he was fighting a war of economy with the communist soviet union, basically proving we could handle more debt (through military spending) before collapsing than they could....we won.

Re-read the blogger article. He specifically calls into question the idea that Cold War spending is what caused the USSR to collapse. If military overspending wasn't the downfall of the Soviet Union then Reagan's alleged fiscal strategy to end the Cold War doesn't deserve the credit that the Right has tried to give it.

[texaspackerbacker]

So to what do you leftists attribute our winning the Cold War, Hoosier? Maybe Gorbachev's kindheartedness?

Maybe it was all a sandbag job to get America to forget about Communism and elect a true Marxist in 2008.

[sheepshead]

That being said his deficit spending had an explicit purpose, he was fighting a war of economy with the communist soviet union, basically proving we could handle more debt (through military spending) before collapsing than they could....we won.

Re-read the blogger article. He specifically calls into question the idea that Cold War spending is what caused the USSR to collapse. If military overspending wasn't the downfall of the Soviet Union then Reagan's alleged fiscal strategy to end the Cold War doesn't deserve the credit that the Right has tried to give it.

So....can we conclude that Jimmy Carter and/ or Wally Mondale would have produced the same result?

[hoosier]

So to what do you leftists attribute our winning the Cold War, Hoosier? Maybe Gorbachev's kindheartedness?

Maybe it was all a sandbag job to get America to forget about Communism and elect a true Marxist in 2008.

More like Gorbachev's political and administrative incompetence: his reforms were never backed up with any coherent plan, and he failed to deal effectively with his main political rival (Yeltsin), who ultimately deposed him at the moment of his greatest weakness. The downfall of the USSR is surely more complicated than you or I or anyone who's not an expert in the region's history is able to summarize. But most scholars agree that the sharp drop in world oil prices in the early 80s led to a severe depletion of the Soviet Union's dollar holdings, and that in turn led to food shortages and general unrest. There are of course many other social and economic factors (ethnic unrest, war with Afghanistan, etc.) that help explain why the USSR entered into an economic and social crisis in the mid 80's. In a nutshell, political incompetence and bureaucratic mismanagement of the economy played a far greater role than did the desire to compete with Reagan's military spending. So yes, to answer Sheephead's question, the result would have been more or less the same with Carter or Mondale in office instead of Reagan. But the myth that a US president led to the USSRs downfall would never have taken root.

[Harlan Huckleby]

I like the term "swiftboating". But to me it doesn't mean an untruthful attack. It means having the truth suddenly shoved into your face like a cream pie.

Are you going to vote for McCain?

McCain has referred to the Swiftboat attack as disgraceful. Seems to be a difference of opinion on how legitimate those accusations were.

BTW, where did YOU spend the Vietnam War?

[bobblehead]

Again, I'll try to make MY position clear without bringing reagan into the discussion (you did that, as you brought in hagel and luger, you are getting very good at distracting from the actual debate about what is right and wrong and making me address people that I don't agree with on the topic because there is an (R) by their name. Remember, my first blog on the politics thread stated, "I'm a libertarian who generally votes republican").

I believe that gov't spending should always be maintained as a certain percentage of GNP. Standing debt should never be more than a certain multiplier of GNP. Deficit spending should be used primarily for specific purposes, like smoothing out a rough economy (I'll address cold war next). Those exact percentages I can't say at this exact moment as I haven't researched it in a long time, but the "best" numbers or ranges of numbers are out there as determined by history and several cray supercomputer models. When we stray over those numbers (and we are over all of them at this moment) it has a negative effect, long term. I think even you agree with that hoosier (correct me if I'm wrong), and stating that a republican didn't follow my model in no way defeats the arguement or bolsters the democratic party.

I let myself get sidetracked by the lugar/hagel/reagan arguements as if they are somehow relevant to right and wrong...thats my fault.

Also taking .7% of GNP and handing it to the UN can only hurt us (no matter who proposed it) at home as that % has to be taken away from what we have available (what gov't should spend as a % of GNP) to the gov't here to spend on infrastructure and anything else.

These are my assertions, and I will debate them to the bitter end, and I don't care who you point out is behind anything, unless we are discussing them running for president or if I will vote for them.

[bobblehead]

Now that I have that out of the way, I will get sidetracked by reagan. First off, remember that budgets are written out for years ahead, and if the next president trys to reign in the built in increases, pig politicians who want their money start screaming draconian cuts, starving children, ect. So while spending went up under reagan in most areas, he only had so much control over that, like I said, we were in a mess when he took over and I believe some defecit spending can be useful in that situation. So, do I think he cut spending in every way I would have like, no, but I think he did well with a shit situation. I also notice that the chart shows 1981 only (carters last budget) and speculates on 82-83, and nothing for 84-88, so I can't really gain much from that chart. But again, cut the guy some slack, he had a huge job and righted the ship, its not his fault bush sr. decided no new taxes meant taxes if the democrats are nice to me.

The cold war...well, if reagan had nothing to do with it, what great timing. You say oil dropped their wealth, I say they spent it on military. I also say we were working in the '80s to drop oil prices. Not sure whether that was part of the strategy or not, I was 10 in 1980 and didn't follow it closely enough...also there was no internet to be able to find the information with 5 clicks like now.

The only thing I can say for certain is that they tried to spend with us dollar for dollar on defense, and capitalism generates far more wealth than communism by any arguement. They went broke and collapsed, we didn't. If you want to attribute other factors, thats fine, but you can't deny we certainly gave them a big push. You point to most scholars, I will point to the history professor I like most, newt gingrich. His view is that reagan exposed the communist model and spent them into collapse. I'll take his word for it, as readily as I'll take any scholar's.

[bobblehead]

Before we can eliminate him on the issues, we are entitled to eliminate him as a person, as a man. On his resume (or lack there of). Just because radical liberals have nominated him doesnt mean the rest of us arent allowed to question his background and where his head's at. Which we intend to do for the next six months. It's just getting started, trust me, the RNC has much more money than the reported Obama war chest. It's just in a different bucket.

I agree with your right to, but I don't have to like it. I think debating the issues rather than his church is a better strategy and more important.

I don't like the game of character assassination, that is what libs did to gingrich with something like 500 ethics complaints, and the only one they got to stick was his lawyer made a mistake on paperwork.

To me, if you have to politicians with good policies then character becomes a big issue, but if you have a top liberal and all the policies that go with it, his character means very little to me, and if my candidate got a sloppy knob from an intern, but was a great policy guy, I'd vote for him anyway (unless he indignantly shook his finger at me and told me he couldn't believe I'm accusing him of this). Clinton should have manned right up, said "yep, she blew me, sorry, won't happen again" and all would have been forgiven. Just as people think society is ready for gay adoption on the other thread, I think they are ready to accept men are horny and make bad choices, but can still make good policy (not that clinton did).