Here's one for my little anonymous chickenshit visitor. Perhaps if you spent more time reading the works of people who lived through the communist tyranny and less time guzzling the DU's Kool-Aid, you might learn a little something about Reagan.
But then, you're a Barking Moonbat, so that chance is rather slim, isn't it?
UPDATE: More about Reagan from Pejman Yousefzadeh
23 comments:
As Lloyd Bentsen once said of the Reagan economy, ""You know, if you let me write $200 billion worth of hot checks every year, I could give you the illusion of prosperity too."
And lest anyone say, Reagan was just doing what other Presidents had done, he wasn't. In the post-WW II period-- after the debt incurred to pay for that war -- the US national debt stayed essentially flat at just under a trillion dollars in real dollars for almost thirty years.
Then Reagan came in and the debt skyrocketed:
Reagan and Bush Senior more than doubled the national debt, permanently hobbling future generations with debt payments.
And what did they accomplish with that debt that is so much better than Presidents who conducted their economic policy without stealing money from their grandchildren?
Any "boom" under Reagan (and the economy wasn't that great overall) was theft from future generations, nothing more. Al Capone had a pretty good economy for himself too, but we didn't give him a state funeral.
It is truly pathetic that conservatives, who once believed in pay-as-you-go accounting, can worship an economic policy that was nothing more than credit card spending sprees.
Back at ya, you pathetic prick.
Oh sure, the largest tax cuts in modern times, causing economic expansion that lasted until Clinton fucked it up. Yep, a really bad legacy, you fucking moron. Theft from future generations? It was Reagan's economic policy that laid the groundwork for almost two decades of economic might! Of course, asking a little communist dipshit like yourself to understand economics is like asking a five year old to understand quantam physics, so I can see why you are so fucking ignorant of anything that has to do with macroeconomics.
And I love how you avoid the actual topic of the link, you little jizz-stained anal wart! Maybe that's because you KNOW you don't have a fucking chance in hell of defending your position, so you fucking avoid it!
Try again, you slimy shitsmear!
My troll's name is Frank. He likes to say "pathetic" too! Think there's any connection?
SondraK
Quite possibly. "frank" seems to be making the rounds.
Oh, for my still-as-yet-to-be-named-chickenshit-troll..
Reagan majored in economics in college. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Majoring in a subject and excelling are two different things. Reagan's GPA was on the low 'C' scale. I would not have hired him, as a matter of fact, I do not hire anyone with less than a 3.25 GPA in the pharmacuetical field.
When dummies rule...we all suffer. When fools like you express your ignorance we must compel ourselves to wonder...where did the genetics mutate??
Oh, so you're in "Pharmacuticals"? A meth lab in your back yard doesn't qualify, twit. And for someone with a professed education, your bullshit and cut-and-paste screeds don't say much for what you were taught.
Try again, you fucking dolt!
Oh NONYMOUS!!!!!! You fuckin' ignorant pile of filth. You know what else Reagan did? He grew the size of the eonconomy to TWICE it's previous size. He lowered interest rates, inflation, unemployment, and defeated the Soviet communists. You are pathetic. You don't even fuckin' know what the national debt is, you worthless ignorant crap stain. :) Here's a clue for ya, bitch! WE are paying off the national debt RIGHT NOW! Yep! We pay off notes that come due and we pay interest on them without fail! HA ha ha You fuckin' retard. The portion of our budget that the debt requires is easily managable. The sky isn't fallin' mother goose! You need a new fairy tale. Dumb fuck.
The Real Reagan Legacy
Debunking Myths About Reagan
by Mike Hersh
March 19, 2002 (Political Sanity/APJP) -- Let's begin our examination of the real Reagan Legacy by taking a look at myth number one: Democrats dominated Congress all through Reagan's terms, and called all his budgets Dead On Arrival.
That's numerically and historically false. Reagan's people shoved his program through the Congress during the early Reagan years. James A. Baker, David Stockman and other Reaganites ran roughshod over Tip O'Neill and the divided Democrats in the House and Senate, and won every critical vote. This is because of the GOP majority in the Senate and the GOP-"Boll Weevil" (or "Dixiecrat") coalition in the House. Phil Gramm was a House Democrat at the time, and he even sponsored the most important Reagan budgets.
Only after the huge Reagan recession -- made worse by utterly failed Reagan "Voodoo Economics" - did Democrats regain some control in Congress. They halted some Reagan initiatives, but couldn't do much on their own. That was a time of gridlock.
Six years into Reagan's presidency, Democrats retook the Senate, and began to reverse some of Reagan's horrendous policies. By that time, Reaganomics had "accomplished" quite a bit: doubled the national debt, caused the S&L crisis, and nearly wrecked the financial system.
Which brings us to myth number two: Jimmy Carter wrecked the economy, and Reagan's bold tax cuts saved it.
This is utterly absurd. Economic growth indices -- GDP, jobs, revenues -- were all positive when Carter left office. All plunged after Reagan policies took effect.
Reagan didn't cure inflation, the main economic problem during the Carter years. Carter's Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker tried when he raised interest rates. That's the opposite of what Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has done to keep inflation low.
Carter's policies and people fought inflation, but maintained real growth. On the other hand, Reagan's policies helped cause the worst recession since the Great Depression: two bleak years with nearly double-digit unemployment! Reaganomics failed in less than a year, and it took an entire second year for the economy to recover from the failure.
Carter didn't cause the inflation problem, but his tough policies and smart personnel solved it. Unfortunately for Carter, it took too long for the good results to kick in. Not only didn't Reagan help whip inflation, he actually opposed the Volcker policies!
Another major myth: Reagan cut taxes on all Americans, and that led to a great expansion.
Here's the truth: the total federal tax burden increased during the Reagan years, and most Americans paid more in taxes after Reagan than before. The "Reagan Recovery" was unremarkable. It looks great only contrasted against the dismal Reagan Recession -- but it had nothing to do with Supply Side voodoo.
With a red ink explosion -- $300 BILLION deficits looming as far as the eye could see -- GOP Senators, notably including Bob Dole, led the way on tax hikes. The economy enjoyed its recovery only after total tax increases larger than the total tax cuts were implemented. Most importantly, average annual GDP growth during the Reagan 80s was lower than during the Clinton 90s or the JFK-LBJ 60s!
Enough about the economy. Here's the biggest myth of them all: Ronald Reagan won the "Cold War".
In reality, Reagan did nothing to bring down the Soviet Union.
By 1980, the Soviet Union was trying to cut its own defense spending. Reagan made it harder for them to do so. In fact, Reagan increased the possibility of a nuclear war because he was -- frankly, and sadly -- senile. He thought we could actually recall submarine-launched nuclear missiles (talk about a Reagan myth), and bullied the Soviets to highest alert several times.
Critically, Reagan never even tried to bring down the Soviet Union.
Wasteful overspending on defense didn't end the Soviet Union. In fact, it played into the hands of authoritarian "Communist" hard-liners in the Kremlin. Reagan thought the Soviet Union was more powerful than we were. He was trying to close what he called "the window of vulnerability."
This was sheer idiocy.
No general in our military would trade our armed forces for theirs. If it were to happen, none of the Soviet military command would turn down that deal. We had better systems, better troops, and better morale.
Here's the truth: we'd already won the Cold War before Reagan took office. All Reagan needed to do was continue the tried-and-true containment policies Harry S. Truman began and all subsequent presidents employed. The Soviet Union was Collapsing from within. The CIA actually told this to Reagan as he took office.
Here's an example: the Soviet Union military couldn't deal with a weak state on its own border, the poor, undermanned Afghanistan. Most of the Soviets' military might had to make sure its "allies" in the Warsaw Pact and subjects along the South Asian front didn't revolt. Even Richard Nixon told Reagan he could balance the budget with big defense cuts.
Reagan ignored this, and wrecked our budget.
We didn't have to increase weapons spending, but Reagan didn't care. He ran away from summits with the dying old-guard Soviets, and the new-style "glasnost" leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev baffled the witless Reagan and his closed-minded extremist advisors.
Maggie Thatcher finally cajoled the Gipper into meeting Gorby, and Gorby cleaned Reagan's clock. Reagan's hard-right "handlers" nearly had to drag Reagan out of the room before he signed away our entire nuclear deterrent. Reagan -- and the planet -- was lucky Gorbachev sought genuine and stable peace. Had Yuri Andropov's health held, Reagan's "jokes" and gaffes might have caused World War III.
Eventually Reagan even gave Gorbachev his seal of approval. Visiting Moscow before the August Coup, Reagan said the Soviet Union was no longer the "Evil Empire." He predicted his friend Gorbachev would lead the Soviet Union for many years to come.
As usual, Reagan was wrong. A few months later, disgruntled military officers kidnapped Gorbachev, throwing him out of power forever. Reagan remained disengaged: nothing he did caused the coup, and nothing he did made the Soviet military support Boris Yeltsin over their superiors.
We're all fortunate things happened as they did -- but once again, Reagan did nothing to make this fluke more likely.
All this is vintage Reagan. Reagan took credit for others' hard word and hard choices, and blamed them for his failures. Reagan even blamed Jimmy Carter for Reagan's foolish, fatal, and reckless decision to leave 243 Marines stationed in Beirut, helpless and unguarded.
Reagan hired over 100 crooks to run our government, and broke several laws himself. His policies were almost uniformly self-defeating, wrong-headed, immoral and unfair.
Reagan was an actor playing the part of the president. He was style over substance; lucky, not good.
And once the myths are stripped from the "legacy", the truth becomes obvious: Reagan was by far the most overrated man in American history.
Again with the cut-and-paste bullshit. You have no original thoughts of your own, do you asswipe? Criminey, you're a fucking ignorant dolt!
Stoned, ignorant and Leftist is no way to go through life, you twit!
Truth hurts when it slaps you in the face, don't it, you ignorant wannabe.
Truth? You wouldn't know what the truth was if it hit you in the face! Let's look at your first lie, you fucking ignorant sack of shit! Any idiot with a computer and internet access can find out that you're a fucking worthless lying fuckwad! Let's check out your claim that the Republicans dominated Congress while Reagan was in office!
From this site: Congressional History1979-1981: Party Divisions: 277 Democrats, 158 Republicans
1981-1983: Party Divisions: 242 Democrats, 192 Republicans, 1 Independent
1983-1985: Party Divisions: 269 Democrats, 166 Republicans
1985-1987: Party Divisions: 253 Democrats, 182 Republicans
1987-1989: Party Divisions: 258 Democrats, 177 Republicans
Your first "myth", and we already see that you're nothing but an ignorant lying fucknozzle! What else have you got, you fucking dipshit? Reagan took us from Carter's double digit inflation, high unemployment, and a wrecked enconomy and turned it into one of the biggest economic booms this country has ever seen! And he did it by cutting taxes, deregulating entire sections of industry, and putting a halt to fucking worthless parasites like you! Maybe if you fucking grew up and learned a few things, you'd be smart enough to stop guzzling the DU's Kool-Aid, but I don't see much hope of THAT happening.
When the very first premise in your cut-and-paste mindless drivel is shown to be a lie, you're fucking sunk. You're an anonymous chickenshit, hiding, lying, and reguritating everything told to you by your masters, just like the good little drone that you are. And I just proved that you're a fucking liar. Bravo. Thanks for making it so easy for me.
If Mike Hersh were an economist, instead of a lawyer, his opinion on economy might hold some value. LOL
http://www.mikehersh.com/aboutus.shtml
You missed the points about the Dixiecrats, dumbass. Read the entire post and try, even though that is hard for you, but try to comprehend what is being said.
Whine, whine, snivel whine. Your post states: "That's numerically and historically false." Your little Leftist writer is full of shit, and so are you. How many excuses for your lies are you going to make up, you anonymous cowardly lying dipshit?
Seriously, you've been exposed as a fucking lying turd. Give up now, while you still can. I suppose if I need to, I can continue to beat you about the head and shoulders like the stupid little bitch that you are, but it looses it's appeal after the third or fourth time.
Some more on the dead dipshit.
Reagan's Legacy
Walter Williams is professor emeritus at the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Affairs and author of the just-published Reaganism and the Death of Representative Democracy (Georgetown University Press).
A just-published book offers a number of Ronald Reagan's letters from among the thousands he wrote to world leaders and ordinary Americans. The personal correspondence provides a wide variety of observations by the former president that heretofore had not been made public.
While these previously undisclosed letters present a fascinating personal glimpse of the man, there is another facet of Reagan that has been available but seldom perceived. It lies at the other extreme from the highly personal side—President Reagan's political principles writ large in what can be labeled as "Reaganism."
Reaganism during its two-plus decades became the ideological driver of disastrous initiatives.
American political institutions and the nation's view of their role changed profoundly under Ronald Reagan's antigovernment, market fundamentalist philosophy that now dominates American political thinking.
It is not hyperbole to label the political and economic changes in less than a quarter century as a radical transformation. Yet, surprisingly, pundits and the public generally have failed to recognize that the drastic changes caused by Reaganism constitute a seismic shift comparable in the size, but not the direction, of its impact to the New Deal.
In particular, the political and economic changes since 1981 have undermined the key national institutions created by the framers of the Constitution to sustain representative governance, and have brought a Second Gilded Age.
The deterioration in the nation's political institutions that had been striking in the first two decades of Reaganism gained speed under George W. Bush. Twenty years of this political philosophy afforded Bush the base for "out-Reaganing" Reagan as he inflicted more damage to the American political system than any of his predecessors during a comparable period of time.
Reaganism during its two-plus decades became the ideological driver of disastrous initiatives. These policies have weakened the nation's most important federal institutions and brought their domination by corporate America and the wealthiest 1 percent of the income distribution.
How did this all come about? We now need to consider the process over time that led from Reaganism to plutocracy.
Facing a sagging economy and double-digit inflation during the late 1970s, the nation became receptive to Reagan's unshakable ideological belief that America could flourish beyond measure through a pro-business, antigovernment approach that featured widespread deregulation and continuing tax cuts at the top.
For President Reagan, the dead hand of government stood as the nation's biggest barrier to sustained high economic growth and extended prosperity. Government was only a problem, never a solution, so he attacked it relentlessly. But once the main institutions of the federal government and their permanent bureaucrats became the president's main targets, it meant Reagan was attacking representative democracy willy-nilly.
That concept as conceived by the framers of the Constitution—particularly James Madison—required strong federal institutions to ensure that all eligible voters had full political equality. Further, elected representatives in Congress had a primary institutional obligation to be the people's agents. Their constituents' needs were to be placed above persons and organizations outside their congressional districts, particularly those who sought to buy influence.
As Reaganism led to the death of representative democracy, the nation underwent a radical political transformation.
Reaganism crushed the national government's institutional competence and capacity for compromise needed to sustain representative democracy.
To start with, Reaganism's ideological fervor bred increasing polarization between the Democrats and the Republicans. Serious deliberations and reasoned bipartisanship almost vanished in Congress as that body became less and less able to carry out even its most basic functions such as passing annual budgets.
In the executive branch, presidents became increasingly secretive, pulled political control to the top, and turned the presidency into a spin machine meant to deceive the public. The White House gained greater political control at the expense of the institutional capability to make sound policy.
Since 1981, excessive deregulation and massive rate reductions in the highest income tax brackets produced a rapidly growing maldistribution of income and wealth that provided corporate America and the nation's wealthiest citizens with ample financial resources to fill the campaign coffers of incumbents and to hire an army of lobbyists.
Big money's clout in the halls of Congress and in the early stages of the national election process at least partially disenfranchised the constituents of the members of the House and Senate.
As Reaganism led to the death of representative democracy, the nation underwent a radical political transformation. The Gilded Age of the late 19th century and its robber barons had morphed into the late 20th century and its predatory corporate chief executive officers such as Enron's Kenneth Lay. The much weakened institutions of governance were again dominated by moneyed interests.
Rebuilding the federal government's institutional capacity is the first pivotal step toward restoring a truly representative government. If the key institutions are to be revivified, the nation must turn away from Reaganism.
Such a change will come about, however, only if ordinary Americans can cut through the unceasing propaganda to see the harm being done to them individually and to the United States in total. The problem is that the broad middle class appears to have limited comprehension that their declining economic security and political equality derive in part from Reaganism and the harsh application of its principles by President Bush.
In the Constitution, the Preamble began "We The People" to signify that the government did not belong to hereditary aristocrats, but to ordinary citizens. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people, however, will perish unless the people's vigilance can keep representative governance alive.
The people failed their most basic political responsibility. Reaganism had stolen representative democracy from them.
anon: If you can, specify what these terms actually refer to - "deterioration in the nation's political institutions" (Name one or two institutions that suffered deterioration?) - "These policies have weakened the nation's most important federal institutions" (Name one or two institutions and the policies that weakened them.)
I see a lot of over-generalizations and no specifics in that article, as well as a lot of name-calling --which indicates the author is socialist, if not communist. Facts are your friend.
Ah, but the use of facts would indicate that our anonymous liar could recognise them. Seeing as how all the little pisswit can do is cut-and-paste regurgitations, it's obvious that facts aren't his strong suit.
Enjoy my handprint on your face, you anonymous little bitch. I don't have time to waste trying to educate a moron who refuses to learn.
But I, on the other hand, am not a quitter, or a loser who runs when the truth confronts me. I have faith you may someday pull you head out of your vagina and see the light.
As far as your handprint goes...I must laugh, I have seen you and you, in no way whatsoever, intimidate me. You are a laughable specimen, to say the least, and you would be the perfect poster child for stem cell research. At least you demonstrate why we use rats to extrapolate data to the human species.
Adieu, until next week....I must return to my work. You might know the place...the Hutch.
You haven't seen jack shit, you cowardly little bitch. And you certainly haven't seen me. You're nothing but a mindless drone who can't even come up with your own arguements. You just do cut-and-paste jobs, posting idiotic drivel written by someone else.
You want a debate? Why don't you try coming up with your own damn thoughts instead of just reguritating whatever some barking moonbat wrote? Oh, that's right, you can't. You're fucking worthless.
I've already proven you're nothing but a lying little fuckwad, would you care to try a different tact for a change? Otherwise, you keep enjoying my handprint on your face, bitch. Maybe when you grow up we can have a conversation.
I'm telegraphing this bitch slap through time and space from one:
Francis W. Porretto 06.06.04 - 2:07 pm
all ....... figures came from the Statistical Abstract Of The United States, the 1989 and 1991 editions.
GDP In 1982 dollars:
1975: $2695 B
1980: $3187 B (+18.3%)
GDP, 1980: $3187 B
GDP, 1988: $4017 B (+26%)
Lefties claim Reagan's tax cuts "led to" the large federal deficits of the Eighties. But that implies that the cuts caused federal revenues to fall.
Federal revenues:
1980: $517 B
1988: $909 B (+76%)
I don't see a problem with federal revenues. Do you? As for spending:
In 1982 dollars:
Defense expenditures:
1980: $164 B
1988: $244 B
Non-defense expenditures:
1980: $535 B
1988: $626 B
Civilian labor force participation: 1975: 70.5%
1980: 73.9%
1988: 77.5%
Involuntarily unemployed:
1975: 8.3%
1980: 7.0%
1988: 5.4%
Oh yeah! Who's stupid. It's the nonymous! Uh huh! Oh Yeah! :D Dumb fucker!
I love the smell of bitchslapped troll in the evening!
It smells like......
Ah hell, I can't finish that cliche. I'm laughing too hard at the mental picture of TVE doing a victory dance while our anonymous asshat mopes away with yet another red handprint on his face.
I love the smell of burning kordite in the morning. Smells like...9/11!
Um Yeah
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