MacRaven - Dave Haxton's Weblog

Tue, 21 Mar 2006

New bedside reading material - Impostor : How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy. Read it and understand that this is what we get for electing a tight-fisted conservative as opposed to a big-spending liberal. Except we didn't.

US President George W Bush signs a bill to increase the national debt ceiling to nearly $9 trillion.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

/Politics | 3 writebacks | permanent link

On 3/21/2006 12:44:46
Arwin wrote

Building on the Reagan legacy

As I recall Ronald Reagan presided over what at that time was record deficit spending... only to be topped by George "the dufus" Bush. In fact the Democratic controlled Congress authorized fewer funds than Reagan requested in most (don't know the exact number) of his annual budgets. I think Reagan in actuallity believed in Keynesian economics where the federal government spends our way out of a recession. Since that was an FDR legacy and Reagan ran against government the Reagan admin. put a different spin on deficit spending to "prime the pump" by calling it supply side economics. So instead of the little guy getting direct relief, it was done through Reagan's constituents, "the big guy" or as we call them now "the man". I'm not a fan of Reagan, but I know an argument can be made for the supply side approach. So "priming the pump" by giving corporate welfare to "the man" could work.... as long as it isn't just paying for more profits derived from off shore labor. I have no problem with priming the pump as long as we save for a rainy day. We sure have problems with the last part. Politicians are way too willing to buy votes the way Bush did in 2000. The big beef I have with Reagan is he said one thing and did another... oh yeah he's a politician. You'd think I'd learn. I think many people voted for Reagan who wouldn't have if they knew what Reagan was really about. On NPR (I think it was NPR) I heard a quote attributed to "Deadeye" Dick Cheney to Bush's first secretary of the treasury (ex-Alcoa Chairman... I can't remember his name) regarding the deficit. "The deficit doesn't count. Reagan proved that." The ex-Alcoa man quit in disgust due to the lack of financial restraint of the current admin. Some legacy!

On 3/21/2006 12:54:29
Dave H wrote

I'm not a huge Reagan fan

either - but at least his spending was mostly defense related (that is, not to prosecute an ongoing war, but to improve our war-fighting capabilities after years of neglect - "defense spending" does not equal "military spending"). And I'm not too sure about Ronnie's "legacy" either - and the book mentioned is by a big Reagan fan defending his generally perceived legacy from what he sees as an assault on core conservative values. In that sense, the book is wrong: while he lays out the big spending habits of our current "conservative" President, he does so by contrast with the nearly-as-big spending habits of his hero. So while I certainly endorse the book, I can't say it's an unqualified endorsement: I agree with you that RR had some majorly bad fiscal habits, too. I wonder if what we're seeing here is the "democracy version" of the old maxim that "Power corrupts ..", this time reading "Power spends..." Thanks for the comment and Be well, Dave H.

On 3/21/2006 12:59:25
Arwin wrote

Bush in the movies

A story about forbidden love between two Cowboys: http://www.claws-and-paws.com/node/759/

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