Barack Obama is a conservative, argues former Reagan adviser Bruce Bartlett

[BroncoInferno]

Barack Obama is a conservative ... really

Right-wingers call him a socialist, but he's really the Democrats' Nixon, argues former Reagan adviser BRUCE BARTLETT

Sunday, August 07, 2011

There is no question that Barack Obama is one of our most enigmatic presidents. Despite having published two volumes of memoirs before being elected president, we really don't know that much about what makes him tick. The debate over the deficit and the debt limit clarified what I think he is: a Democratic Richard Nixon.

To explain what I mean, I first have to tell some history.

Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt was a transformative president, partly because of his policies but mainly because he presided over the two most disruptive events of the 20th century: the Great Depression and World War II.

By the time Dwight Eisenhower took office, people craved stability and he was determined to give it to them. This angered his fellow Republicans, who wanted nothing more than to repeal Roosevelt's New Deal, root and branch. And with control of both the House and Senate in 1953 and 1954, he could have undone a lot of it if he wanted to.

But Eisenhower not only refused to repeal the New Deal, he wouldn't even let Republicans in Congress cut taxes even though the high World War II and Korean War rates were in effect. He thought a balanced budget should take priority. Eisenhower also helped to destroy right-wing hero Joe McCarthy and worked closely with liberals on civil rights.

Eisenhower's effective liberalism was deeply frustrating to conservatives. Robert Welch of the John Birch Society even accused him of being a Communist. But after Republicans lost control of Congress in 1954, he was the only game in town for them.

By 1964, conservatives got control of the GOP's nominating process and put forward one of their own, Barry Goldwater, to complete the unfinished work of repealing the New Deal that Eisenhower refused to do. But Goldwater lost in a landslide to Lyndon Johnson, who quickly capitalized on his victory by doubling down on the New Deal with the Great Society.

Although Johnson was done in by Vietnam, his domestic liberalism was as popular in 1968 as the New Deal had been in 1952. Nevertheless, conservatives deluded themselves that Nixon would repeal the Great Society. But just as Eisenhower cemented the New Deal in place, Nixon accepted the legitimacy of the Great Society. His goal was to make it work efficiently and shave off the rough edges. Nixon even expanded the welfare state by expanding its regulatory reach through the Environmental Protection Agency and other new government agencies.

Conservatives were infuriated by Nixon's betrayal, but lacking control of Congress they were stuck with him just as they had been with Eisenhower. Not very many were upset when Watergate pushed Nixon out of office.

Conservatives finally got the president they had always hoped for when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. But by then, key New Deal/Great Society programs like Social Security and Medicare were so deeply embedded in government and society that he never lifted a finger to dismantle them. Reagan even raised taxes 11 times to keep them funded.

Liberals initially viewed Bill Clinton the same way conservatives viewed Eisenhower -- as a liberator who would reverse the awful policies of his two predecessors. But almost immediately, Clinton decided that deficit reduction would be the first order of business in his administration. His promised middle-class tax cut and economic stimulus were abandoned.

By 1995, Clinton was working with Republicans to dismantle welfare. In 1997, he supported a cut in the capital gains tax. As the benefits of his 1993 deficit reduction package took effect, budget deficits disappeared and we had the first significant surpluses in memory. Yet Clinton steadfastly refused to spend any of the flood of revenues coming into the Treasury, hording them like a latter day Midas. In the end, his administration was even more conservative than Eisenhower's on fiscal policy.

And just as pent-up liberal aspirations exploded in the 1960s with spending for every pet project green lighted, so too the fiscal conservatism of the Clinton years led to an explosion of tax cuts under George W. Bush, who supported every one that came down the pike. The result was the same as it was with Johnson: massive federal deficits and a tanking economy.

Thus Barack Obama took office under roughly the same political and economic circumstances that Nixon did in 1968 except in a mirror opposite way. Instead of being forced to manage a slew of new liberal spending programs, as Nixon did, Obama had to cope with a revenue structure that had been decimated by Republicans.

Liberals hoped that Obama would overturn conservative policies and launch a new era of government activism. Although Republicans routinely accuse him of being a socialist, an honest examination of his presidency must conclude that he has in fact been moderately conservative to exactly the same degree that Nixon was moderately liberal.

Here are a few examples of Obama's effective conservatism:

• His stimulus bill was half the size that his advisers thought necessary;

• He continued Bush's war and national security policies and even retained Bush's defense secretary;

• He put forward a health plan almost identical to those that had been supported by Republicans such as Mitt Romney in the recent past, pointedly rejecting the single-payer option favored by liberals;

• He caved to conservative demands that the Bush tax cuts be extended without getting any quid pro quo whatsoever;

• And in the past few weeks he has supported deficit reductions that go far beyond those offered by Republicans.

Further evidence can be found in the writings of outspoken liberals such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who has condemned Obama's conservatism ever since he took office.

Conservatives will, of course, scoff at the idea of Obama being any sort of conservative, just as liberals scoffed at Nixon being any kind of liberal. But with the benefit of historical hindsight, it's now obvious that Nixon was indeed a moderate liberal in practice. And with the passage of time, it's increasingly obvious that Clinton was essentially an Eisenhower Republican.

It may take 20 years before Obama's basic conservatism is widely accepted as well, but it's a fact.

Bruce Bartlett, former senior policy analyst in the Reagan White House, is a columnist for The Fiscal Times.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11219/1165426-109-0.stm?cmpid=newspanel#ixzz1UQ43W1xR

[Pony Boy]

Ha......... Don't try to pin that turd on the conservatives

[BroncoInferno]

Ha......... Don't try to pin that turd on the conservatives

How about try and rebut the article, which was written by a Reagan aide (i.e. not a liberal)? You won't, because you can't.

[Popcorn Sutton]

Ha......... Don't try to pin that turd on the conservatives

What about Bush? :approve:

[Requiem]

Obama isn't nearly as liberal as people would like to believe. Though, that is understandable, because there are about five people here who are educated or qualified to talk ideology correctly.

[alkemical]

I agree, and I am one of them. The rest of you are idiots.

[Requiem]

I agree, and I am one of them. The rest of you are idiots.

I'm still waiting on a deal on those HP computers better than what I get via e-mail or is already available online. ^5

[alkemical]

I'm still waiting on a deal on those HP computers better than what I get via e-mail or is already available online. ^5


For you, triple the cost!!! I have to make margins. (Oh, and I don't do that anymore, make much more $$$$ in my new endeavors! - with out the bull**** programs, bitchy entitled customers, etc)

[Requiem]

Well, lets just hope you are a better salesman at whatever you do now than you were at HP.

[alkemical]

Well, lets just hope you are a better salesman at whatever you do now than you were at HP.

$4.2Million in sales in 4 months. Not bad. But hey, nothing like an opportunity for you to show the OM how low-class you are!

[Requiem]

$4.2Million in sales in 4 months. Not bad. But hey, nothing like an opportunity for you to show the OM how low-class you are!

I was actually being sincere in that, after what you had shared to me about your HP endeavors. I am stoked you are doing something new and you are making well out with it. Hope everyone can make out well in life. Don't try and guess or read intentions. ;)

[alkemical]

I was actually being sincere in that, after what you had shared to me about your HP endeavors. I am stoked you are doing something new and you are making well out with it. Hope everyone can make out well in life. Don't try and guess or read intentions. ;)

**** off. You ride my ass and want to be a douchbag, then suck on my nuts.

[epicSocialism4tw]

http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee83/Thread_Killers/ThisThreadSucks.jpg

[broncocalijohn]

What about Bush? :approve:

Bush and Obama can almost be in the same boat. Obama is far from a conservative but he has become more central than many of his liberal friends would like him to be.

* He extended Bush tax cuts for all (but would like to repeal that asap)
* continues war in Afghanistan and Iraq (as Bush did ---started)
* went more center than left on the debt "solution"
* Spends the **** out of the money we do or don't have (aka Bush)

He isnt as liberal as many keep labeling him. He isnt far off from Bushy 2.0 also.

[Pony Boy]

How about try and rebut the article, which was written by a Reagan aide (i.e. not a liberal)? You won't, because you can't.

Obamageddon, Barackalypse Now, Debt Man Walking or what ever term you wish to use to describe Obama is acceptable, but please don’t call him a conservative. LOL

[BroncoInferno]

Obamageddon, Barackalypse Now, Debt Man Walking or what ever term you wish to use to describe Obama is acceptable, but please don’t call him a conservative. LOL

Just like I thought. You fail to offer any kind of a legitimate rebuttal to any of the points made in the article (an article written by a conservative, no less). No surprise. Another worthless contribution.

[BroncoInferno]

http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee83/Thread_Killers/ThisThreadSucks.jpg

What? Drama Llama failing to offer any kind of a counterargument to the OP? Well, that is a stunner Ha!

[elsid13]

Obama needs to operate within the environment where he is. The culture of the country is currently right of center, so that where he operates to be successful.

[That One Guy]

Obama needs to operate within the environment where he is. The culture of the country is currently right of center, so that where he operates to be successful.

Agreed. You let Obama do whatever he wanted and you'd have a very much more liberal government. He just does what he can get away with.

[Rigs11]

Agreed. You let Obama do whatever he wanted and you'd have a very much more liberal government. He just does what he can get away with.

I disagree,he knows he has to stay centered to win re election.once he does,expect him to veer left.

[Pony Boy]

Just like I thought. You fail to offer any kind of a legitimate rebuttal to any of the points made in the article (an article written by a conservative, no less). No surprise. Another worthless contribution.

Obama violates the first law of Fiscal Conservatism "a government does not have the right to run up large debts and then throw the burden on the taxpayer".

That alone throws your whole argument out the window.

[El Guapo]

I. Cant. Stop. Laughing!

[That One Guy]

I disagree,he knows he has to stay centered to win re election.once he does,expect him to veer left.

Good point. We might see a different person if he wins reelection.

We're basically agreed though. He does what he can get way with - and still get elected again.

[DenverBrit]

What? Drama Llama failing to offer any kind of a counterargument to the OP? Well, that is a stunner Ha!

He doesn't have time.

He's still trying to find the Moody's 7-8 trillion debt reduction demand that only he was privy to. Hilarious!

[sirhcyennek81]

The article lost me when it said Obama is conservative because he only supported a stimulus half the size his advisors wanted.

Thanks for adding 3.7 tril to the Nat'l debt. I guess I should be greatful it wasnt 7.4 tril instead.

:Broncos:

[mhgaffney]

Obama isn't nearly as liberal as people would like to believe. Though, that is understandable, because there are about five people here who are educated or qualified to talk ideology correctly.

hahahahahahaa

[mhgaffney]

Check out the interview with Michael Hudson - who said that Obama is to the right of Bachman...

The old left right paradigm is out of date. It's now about financial control -- of BOTH parties -

Wall Street is the enemy = the new Bank of England that our forefathers fought in the 1770s.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Barack Obama is a conservative, argues former Reagan adviser Bruce Bartlett

http://progressivepeach.typepad.com/.a/6a011168476f8c970c0133f560fc22970b-320wi

Some of us were pointing this out before the election.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Check out the interview with Michael Hudson - who said that Obama is to the right of Bachman...

The old left right paradigm is out of date. It's now about financial control -- of BOTH parties -

Wall Street is the enemy = the new Bank of England that our forefathers fought in the 1770s.

Ding ding ding! Winner.

[Broncojef]

Reagan's 1981 Program for Economic Recovery had four major policy objectives:

(1) reduce the growth of government spending,
(2) reduce the marginal tax rates on income from both labor and capital,
(3) reduce regulation
(4) reduce inflation by controlling the growth of the money supply. These major policy changes, in turn, were expected to increase saving and investment, increase economic growth, balance the budget, restore healthy financial markets, and reduce inflation and interest rates.


This is a policy a true leader comes up with to lead a country out of unemployment and a country out of recession. Read all of the above carefully and we are doing the inverse of all of Reagan's policies. Actually look at anything about either one of these guys (Reagan/Obama) and you'll find they are always 180 degrees.

Obama and his people like to paint obama as reagan but never have there been two more opposites! Reagan was our best president, Obama our Worst.

[Broncojef]

Barack Obama is a conservative, argues former Reagan adviser Bruce Bartlett

http://progressivepeach.typepad.com/.a/6a011168476f8c970c0133f560fc22970b-320wi

Some of us were pointing this out before the election.

You were wrong then and even more wrong now.

[Broncojef]

The article lost me when it said Obama is conservative because he only supported a stimulus half the size his advisors wanted.

Thanks for adding 3.7 tril to the Nat'l debt. I guess I should be greatful it wasnt 7.4 tril instead.

:Broncos:

Maybe it should touch on his most recent budget that had so much spending not even one democrat senator could vote for it. Good lord i can't believe people even argue this. Obama is the most far left wing wackado this country has ever seen.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

You were wrong then and even more wrong now.

Too bad the facts aren't on your side there.

You've been listening to Rehab Rush and/or the rest of his ilk for so long you obviously can't tell fact from fiction.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Reagan's 1981 Program for Economic Recovery had four major policy objectives:

(1) reduce the growth of government spending,
(2) reduce the marginal tax rates on income from both labor and capital,
(3) reduce regulation
(4) reduce inflation by controlling the growth of the money supply. These major policy changes, in turn, were expected to increase saving and investment, increase economic growth, balance the budget, restore healthy financial markets, and reduce inflation and interest rates.

And the results...

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/National-Debt-GDP-L.gif

>>Reagan, until then the fringe "Voodoo economics" candidate who was heading into the election trailing far behind Jimmy Carter, was swept into the White House on a wave of public concern of the Iranians taking US hostages. Reagan promptly cut income taxes on the very rich from 70% down to 27%. Corporate tax rates were also cut so severely that they went from representing over 33% of total federal tax receipts in 1951 to less than 9% in 1983 (they're still in that neighborhood, the lowest in the industrialized world).

The result was devastating. Our government was suddenly so badly awash in red ink that Reagan doubled the tax paid only by people earning less than $40,000/year (FICA), and then began borrowing from the huge surplus this new tax was accumulating in the Social Security Trust Fund. Even with that, Reagan had to borrow more money in his 8 years than the sum total of all presidents from George Washington to Jimmy Carter combined.

In addition to badly throwing the nation into debt, Reagan's tax cut blew out the ceiling on the accumulation of wealth, leading to a new Gilded Age and the rise of a generation of super-wealthy that hadn't been seen since the Robber Baron era of the 1890s or the Roaring 20s.

And, most tragically, Reagan's tax cuts caused America to stop investing in infrastructure. As a nation, we've been coasting since the early 1980s, living on borrowed money while we burn through (in some cases literally) the hospitals, roads, bridges, steam tunnels, and other infrastructure we built in the Golden Age of the Middle Class between the 1940s and the 1980s.

We even stopped investing in the intellectual infrastructure of this nation: college education. A degree that a student in the 1970s could have paid for by working as a waitress at a Howard Johnson's restaurant (what my wife did in the late 60s - I did so working as a near-minimum-wage DJ) now means incurring massive and life-altering debt for all but the very wealthy. Reagan, who as governor ended free tuition at the University of California, put into place the foundations for the explosion in college tuition we see today.

- Thom Hartmann

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/06/3003



Reagan was our best president, Obama our Worst.

Hilarious!

Wow!

You're more than just a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

[Broncojef]

Reagan, until then the fringe "Voodoo economics" candidate who was heading into the election trailing far behind Jimmy Carter, was swept into the White House on a wave of public concern of the Iranians taking US hostages. Reagan promptly cut income taxes on the very rich from 70% down to 27%. Corporate tax rates were also cut so severely that they went from representing over 33% of total federal tax receipts in 1951 to less than 9% in 1983 (they're still in that neighborhood, the lowest in the industrialized world).

Reagan won the wite house because just like Obama, Carter was clueless as to economics and what he was doing. In 1980, the "misery index" -- unemployment plus inflation -- crested 20 percent for the first time since World War II. Ronald Reagan blamed this on Jimmy Carter, and went on to win the White House. Reaganomics was the engine that propelled the longest economic expansion in peacetime history. The increasing taxation and regulation under Carter stifled the economy. Reagan's 1981 budget contained across-the-board, supply-side tax cuts that allowed entrepreneurs to invest and increase productivity. Reagan also slashed regulations, unshackling the entrepreneurial spirit of American business. you'd also better study corporate tax code, theres a reason businesses are fleeing to mexico and Canada. Our taxation on business is killing the golden goose that made America great...we are no where close to the lowest tax system in the industrialized world.


The result was devastating. Our government was suddenly so badly awash in red ink that Reagan doubled the tax paid only by people earning less than $40,000/year (FICA), and then began borrowing from the huge surplus this new tax was accumulating in the Social Security Trust Fund. Even with that, Reagan had to borrow more money in his 8 years than the sum total of all presidents from George Washington to Jimmy Carter combined.

Reagan implemented sweeping new political and economic initiatives. His supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics", advocated reducing tax rates to spur economic growth, controlling the money supply to reduce inflation, deregulation of the economy, and reducing government spending. He proposed an enormous increase in the military budget ($1.5 trillion over five years) to rebuild armed forces that Carter and others prior to him allowed to deteriorate badly in the 1970s.

During Jimmy Carter's last year in office, inflation averaged 12.5%, compared to 4.4% during Reagan's last year in office. Over those eight years, the unemployment rate declined from 7.1% to 5.5%. Congress passed and Reagan signed into law tax increases of some nature in every year from 1981 to 1987 to continue funding such government programs as TEFRA, Social Security, and the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984. Despite the fact that TEFRA was the "largest peacetime tax increase in American history," Reagan is better known for his tax cuts and lower-taxes philosophy. Real gross domestic product (GDP) growth recovered strongly after the early 1980s recession ended in 1982, and grew during his eight years in office at an annual rate of 3.85% per year. Unemployment peaked at 10.8% monthly rate in December 1982—higher than any time since the Great Depression—then dropped during the rest of Reagan's presidency. Sixteen million new jobs were created, while inflation significantly decreased. The net effect of all Reagan-era tax bills was a 1% decrease in government revenues when compared to Treasury Department revenue estimates from the Administration's first post-enactment January budgets. However, federal Income Tax receipts increased from 1980 to 1989, rising from $308.7Bn to $549.0Bn.

In addition to badly throwing the nation into debt, Reagan's tax cut blew out the ceiling on the accumulation of wealth, leading to a new Gilded Age and the rise of a generation of super-wealthy that hadn't been seen since the Robber Baron era of the 1890s or the Roaring 20s.

Yes sometimes drastic measures must be taken to overcome bad situations. Reagan was left a terrible economy and took measures as a great leader to do what had to be done to right the ship and spur the greatest peacetime economy this country has ever known. He believed in capitalism and didn't vilify people who worked hard and made money. Oh to have those days now eh?

And, most tragically, Reagan's tax cuts caused America to stop investing in infrastructure. As a nation, we've been coasting since the early 1980s, living on borrowed money while we burn through (in some cases literally) the hospitals, roads, bridges, steam tunnels, and other infrastructure we built in the Golden Age of the Middle Class between the 1940s and the 1980s.

Yes, there were no government shovel ready stimulus plans to spawn the great growth we have recently witnessed under Obama (sarcasm). Less government and less government programs is a rule we should be following today.

We even stopped investing in the intellectual infrastructure of this nation: college education. A degree that a student in the 1970s could have paid for by working as a waitress at a Howard Johnson's restaurant (what my wife did in the late 60s - I did so working as a near-minimum-wage DJ) now means incurring massive and life-altering debt for all but the very wealthy. Reagan, who as governor ended free tuition at the University of California, put into place the foundations for the explosion in college tuition we see today.

I think you are blaming the wrong person for education costs. The rising costs didn't begin and end with reagan. The main reason tuition continues to rise is a dramatic change that took place regarding the Federal Stafford Loan more than a decade ago. When Uncle Sam opened the floodgates to government-backed student loans without parent income restrictions in 1992, colleges welcomed the news with open arms. The sudden injection of millions of additional aid dollars only furthered tuition increases. Add to that the government’s continued promotion of the Stafford Loan as a low-cost program, and you have the formula for hyperinflationary costs.

When the government made it exceptionally easy for students to borrow massive amounts of money, the colleges followed the lead by increasing their tuition rates. This combination led to record-level borrowing. if you want to blame someone I'd blame lending institutions and colleges that are playing each other in a scenario to make as much money as possible while churning out meaningless degrees of untrained youth. this isn't reagan's fault.


- Thom Hartmann

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

^

Ha ha ha! :laugh:

Had to know you would trot out the usual, already-discredited trickle-down propaganda in support of Red Ink Ron.

You are simply one of those people who never allows facts or history to get in the way of ideology.

[Broncojef]

And the results...


Your inital argument was Obama is a conservative just like reagan. I have no earthly idea how you can look at Reagan's economic policies and think they were even remotely close to Obama's. As I said before they are 180 degrees out. This original article and the premise of your argument lacks substance. Whether you agree with reagan or not he has nothing in common with Reagan and shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath. I think your confusion centers around the fact barrack doesn't spend or bankrupt the country nearly as fast as you would...therefore he is conservative. With that premise I guess I have no argument.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Broncojef vs. Reality...


And the results...


Your inital argument was Obama is a conservative just like reagan. I have no earthly idea how you can look at Reagan's economic policies and think they were even remotely close to Obama's. As I said before they are 180 degrees out. This original article and the premise of your argument lacks substance. Whether you agree with reagan or not he has nothing in common with Reagan and shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath. I think your confusion centers around the fact barrack doesn't spend or bankrupt the country nearly as fast as you would...therefore he is conservative. With that premise I guess I have no argument.

Debt increase by presidents: Reagan 186%, Bush II 72% Bush 54% Clinton 41% Obama 23% (so far) Source: CBO

[Broncojef]

^

Ha ha ha! :laugh:

Had to know you would trot out the usual, already-discredited trickle-down propaganda in support of Red Ink Ron.

You are simply one of those people who never allows facts or history to get in the way of ideology.

I'm not sure who discredited them, we are seeing what far left wing keynsian theory does to the economy and the success that ensued when we had a true conservative leader. Reagan led us out of a dark time and was an inspiration on many levels. Cut spending, cut taxes and promote a climate of respect to business and America will once again rise. My premise also dictates Obama is making the current situation worse and it will continue to get worse....he's no Reagan, no matter how the media tries to spin him. void on leadership void on economic policy...Reagan would have turned the economy by now and wouldn't be pointing fingers. I'm not an ideologue, I simply want America to once again be great.

[Broncojef]

Broncojef vs. Reality...

Lets be clear on one thing since you want to bash Reagan's spending. reagan spent in 8 years roughly what Barrack did his first in office

> Ronald Reagan’s First Term – $656 billion increase

> Ronald Reagan’s Second Term – $1.036 trillion increase

> George H.W. Bush’s Term – $1.587 trillion increase

> Bill Clinton’s First Term – $1.122 trillion increase

> Bill Clinton’s Second Term – $418 billion increase

> George W. Bush’s First Term – $1.885 trillion increase

> George W. Bush’s Second Term – $3.014 trillion increase

> Barack Obama’s First “Year” – $1.573 trillion increase

[Broncojef]

Current Obama administration projections indicate that the National Debt will increase by approximately $6.5 trillion during President Obama’s first term. I might add that every financial projection Obama and his staff make always are readjusted. This picture that the TEA party or republicans caused our rating downgrade is crazy. Again obama's last budget was so huge not even one democratic senator could vote for it.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

I'm not sure who discredited them, we are seeing what far left wing keynsian theory does to the economy and the success that ensued when we had a true conservative leader. Reagan led us out of a dark time and was an inspiration on many levels. Cut spending, cut taxes and promote a climate of respect to business and America will once again rise. My premise also dictates Obama is making the current situation worse and it will continue to get worse....he's no Reagan, no matter how the media tries to spin him. void on leadership void on economic policy...Reagan would have turned the economy by now and wouldn't be pointing fingers. I'm not an ideologue, I simply want America to once again be great.

Reagan didn't "lead us out of a dark time."

He set us on the course for our present destination, i.e., crippling debt and a chasm between the "haves" and the "have nots" that nearly rivals Mexico (where ~30 families control all of their nation's wealth and everyone else is just a serf.)

Red Ink Ron was the president who took us from "pay as you go" to "live now/pay later."

The fact that Red Ink Ron increased our national debt by 186% speaks for itself.

Before Reagan came along, an American family could still live a comfortable middle class lifestyle on the father's income alone. Mom could stay at home and raise the children. It was Reagan who changed all that forever.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

10 Things Conservatives Don’t Want You To Know About Ronald Reagan

1. Reagan was a serial tax raiser. As governor of California, Reagan “signed into law the largest tax increase in the history of any state up till then.” Meanwhile, state spending nearly doubled. As president, Reagan “raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office,” including four times in just two years. As former GOP Senator Alan Simpson, who called Reagan “a dear friend,” told NPR, “Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times in his administration — I was there.” “Reagan was never afraid to raise taxes,” said historian Douglas Brinkley, who edited Reagan’s memoir. Reagan the anti-tax zealot is “false mythology,” Brinkley said.

2. Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit. During the Reagan years, the debt increased to nearly $3 trillion, “roughly three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether.” Reagan enacted a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously. Despite the conservative myth that tax cuts somehow increase revenue, the government went deeper into debt and Reagan had to raise taxes just a year after he enacted his tax cut. Despite ten more tax hikes on everything from gasoline to corporate income, Reagan was never able to get the deficit under control.

3. Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. Unemployment jumped to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level. Meanwhile, income inequality exploded. Despite the myth that Reagan presided over an era of unmatched economic boom for all Americans, Reagan disproportionately taxed the poor and middle class, but the economic growth of the 1980′s did little help them. “Since 1980, median household income has risen only 30 percent, adjusted for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled,” the New York Times’ David Leonhardt noted.

4. Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously. Reagan promised “to move boldly, decisively, and quickly to control the runaway growth of federal spending,” but federal spending “ballooned” under Reagan. He bailed out Social Security in 1983 after attempting to privatize it, and set up a progressive taxation system to keep it funded into the future. He promised to cut government agencies like the Department of Energy and Education but ended up adding one of the largest — the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, which today has a budget of nearly $90 billion and close to 300,000 employees. He also hiked defense spending by over $100 billion a year to a level not seen since the height of the Vietnam war.

5. Reagan did little to fight a woman’s right to chose. As governor of California in 1967, Reagan signed a bill to liberalize the state’s abortion laws that “resulted in more than a million abortions.” When Reagan ran for president, he advocated a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited all abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother, but once in office, he “never seriously pursued” curbing choice.

6. Reagan was a “bellicose peacenik.” He wrote in his memoirs that “[m]y dream…became a world free of nuclear weapons.” “This vision stemmed from the president’s belief that the biblical account of Armageddon prophesied nuclear war — and that apocalypse could be averted if everyone, especially the Soviets, eliminated nuclear weapons,” the Washington Monthly noted. And Reagan’s military buildup was meant to crush the Soviet Union, but “also to put the United States in a stronger position from which to establish effective arms control” for the the entire world — a vision acted out by Regean’s vice president, George H.W. Bush, when he became president.

7. Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants. Reagan signed into law a bill that made any immigrant who had entered the country before 1982 eligible for amnesty. The bill was sold as a crackdown, but its tough sanctions on employers who hired undocumented immigrants were removed before final passage. The bill helped 3 million people and millions more family members gain American residency. It has since become a source of major embarrassment for conservatives.

8. Reagan illegally funneled weapons to Iran. Reagan and other senior U.S. officials secretly sold arms to officials in Iran, which was subject to a an arms embargo at the time, in exchange for American hostages. Some funds from the illegal arms sales also went to fund anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua — something Congress had already prohibited the administration from doing. When the deals went public, the Iran-Contra Affair, as it came to be know, was an enormous political scandal that forced several senior administration officials to resign.

9. Reagan vetoed a comprehensive anti-Apartheid act. which placed sanctions on South Africa and cut off all American trade with the country. Reagan’s veto was overridden by the Republican-controlled Senate. Reagan responded by saying “I deeply regret that Congress has seen fit to override my veto,” saying that the law “will not solve the serious problems that plague that country.”

10. Reagan helped create the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. Reagan fought a proxy war with the Soviet Union by training, arming, equipping, and funding Islamist mujahidin fighters in Afghanistan. Reagan funneled billions of dollars, along with top-secret intelligence and sophisticated weaponry to these fighters through the Pakistani intelligence service. The Talbian and Osama Bin Laden — a prominent mujahidin commander — emerged from these mujahidin groups Reagan helped create, and U.S. policy towards Pakistan remains strained because of the intelligence services’ close relations to these fighters. In fact, Reagan’s decision to continue the proxy war after the Soviets were willing to retreat played a direct role in Bin Laden’s ascendency.

Conservatives seem to be in such denial about the less flattering aspects of Reagan; it sometimes appears as if they genuinely don’t know the truth of his legacy. Yesterday, when liberal activist Mike Stark challenged hate radio host Rush Limbaugh on why Reagan remains a conservative hero despite raising taxes so many times, Limbaugh flew into a tirade and demanded, “Where did you get this silly notion that Reagan raised taxes?“

http://marinprogressive.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/ronald-reagan-the-truth-conservatives-dont-like/

[epicSocialism4tw]

Reagan, until then the fringe "Voodoo economics" candidate who was heading into the election trailing far behind Jimmy Carter, was swept into the White House on a wave of public concern of the Iranians taking US hostages. Reagan promptly cut income taxes on the very rich from 70% down to 27%. Corporate tax rates were also cut so severely that they went from representing over 33% of total federal tax receipts in 1951 to less than 9% in 1983 (they're still in that neighborhood, the lowest in the industrialized world).

Reagan won the wite house because just like Obama, Carter was clueless as to economics and what he was doing. In 1980, the "misery index" -- unemployment plus inflation -- crested 20 percent for the first time since World War II. Ronald Reagan blamed this on Jimmy Carter, and went on to win the White House. Reaganomics was the engine that propelled the longest economic expansion in peacetime history. The increasing taxation and regulation under Carter stifled the economy. Reagan's 1981 budget contained across-the-board, supply-side tax cuts that allowed entrepreneurs to invest and increase productivity. Reagan also slashed regulations, unshackling the entrepreneurial spirit of American business. you'd also better study corporate tax code, theres a reason businesses are fleeing to mexico and Canada. Our taxation on business is killing the golden goose that made America great...we are no where close to the lowest tax system in the industrialized world.


The result was devastating. Our government was suddenly so badly awash in red ink that Reagan doubled the tax paid only by people earning less than $40,000/year (FICA), and then began borrowing from the huge surplus this new tax was accumulating in the Social Security Trust Fund. Even with that, Reagan had to borrow more money in his 8 years than the sum total of all presidents from George Washington to Jimmy Carter combined.

Reagan implemented sweeping new political and economic initiatives. His supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics", advocated reducing tax rates to spur economic growth, controlling the money supply to reduce inflation, deregulation of the economy, and reducing government spending. He proposed an enormous increase in the military budget ($1.5 trillion over five years) to rebuild armed forces that Carter and others prior to him allowed to deteriorate badly in the 1970s.

During Jimmy Carter's last year in office, inflation averaged 12.5%, compared to 4.4% during Reagan's last year in office. Over those eight years, the unemployment rate declined from 7.1% to 5.5%. Congress passed and Reagan signed into law tax increases of some nature in every year from 1981 to 1987 to continue funding such government programs as TEFRA, Social Security, and the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984. Despite the fact that TEFRA was the "largest peacetime tax increase in American history," Reagan is better known for his tax cuts and lower-taxes philosophy. Real gross domestic product (GDP) growth recovered strongly after the early 1980s recession ended in 1982, and grew during his eight years in office at an annual rate of 3.85% per year. Unemployment peaked at 10.8% monthly rate in December 1982—higher than any time since the Great Depression—then dropped during the rest of Reagan's presidency. Sixteen million new jobs were created, while inflation significantly decreased. The net effect of all Reagan-era tax bills was a 1% decrease in government revenues when compared to Treasury Department revenue estimates from the Administration's first post-enactment January budgets. However, federal Income Tax receipts increased from 1980 to 1989, rising from $308.7Bn to $549.0Bn.

In addition to badly throwing the nation into debt, Reagan's tax cut blew out the ceiling on the accumulation of wealth, leading to a new Gilded Age and the rise of a generation of super-wealthy that hadn't been seen since the Robber Baron era of the 1890s or the Roaring 20s.

Yes sometimes drastic measures must be taken to overcome bad situations. Reagan was left a terrible economy and took measures as a great leader to do what had to be done to right the ship and spur the greatest peacetime economy this country has ever known. He believed in capitalism and didn't vilify people who worked hard and made money. Oh to have those days now eh?

And, most tragically, Reagan's tax cuts caused America to stop investing in infrastructure. As a nation, we've been coasting since the early 1980s, living on borrowed money while we burn through (in some cases literally) the hospitals, roads, bridges, steam tunnels, and other infrastructure we built in the Golden Age of the Middle Class between the 1940s and the 1980s.

Yes, there were no government shovel ready stimulus plans to spawn the great growth we have recently witnessed under Obama (sarcasm). Less government and less government programs is a rule we should be following today.

We even stopped investing in the intellectual infrastructure of this nation: college education. A degree that a student in the 1970s could have paid for by working as a waitress at a Howard Johnson's restaurant (what my wife did in the late 60s - I did so working as a near-minimum-wage DJ) now means incurring massive and life-altering debt for all but the very wealthy. Reagan, who as governor ended free tuition at the University of California, put into place the foundations for the explosion in college tuition we see today.

I think you are blaming the wrong person for education costs. The rising costs didn't begin and end with reagan. The main reason tuition continues to rise is a dramatic change that took place regarding the Federal Stafford Loan more than a decade ago. When Uncle Sam opened the floodgates to government-backed student loans without parent income restrictions in 1992, colleges welcomed the news with open arms. The sudden injection of millions of additional aid dollars only furthered tuition increases. Add to that the government’s continued promotion of the Stafford Loan as a low-cost program, and you have the formula for hyperinflationary costs.

When the government made it exceptionally easy for students to borrow massive amounts of money, the colleges followed the lead by increasing their tuition rates. This combination led to record-level borrowing. if you want to blame someone I'd blame lending institutions and colleges that are playing each other in a scenario to make as much money as possible while churning out meaningless degrees of untrained youth. this isn't reagan's fault.


- Thom Hartmann

End thread.

Thanks for playing, LABF. Adios.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

End thread.

Thanks for playing, LABF. Adios.

You mean you're feeding from the same Saint Ron disinfo trough as your buddy Broncojef?

Say it ain't so! :D