The Cult of Ronald Reagan, part XIV

You are very much right, Jay, about the real Reagan. He carried a big stick, but used it with carrots. He didn’t bludgeon people with it and ask questions later. He understood bi-partisanship and diplomacy better than anyone in either party today.

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Reagan cut taxes during his term. Repeating the lie over and over again doesn’t make it true bookman.

And I am an adherent to Conservatism not Reaganism, it’s about time we as a party understood the difference.

We’re getting there, it’s a shame Obozo has given us the biggest lift.

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Despite the Terry Sciavo fiasco – Jeb was always the brightest of the Bush boys. Too bad he didn’t run for POTUS – he probably hates George for that.

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Dang, I hate to say it… but given I agree with much of the post I can possibly be forgiven for going with a finger-pointing rejoinder?

[[he also understood that compromise made governance possible.]]

“I knew President Reagan, Speaker Pelosi. And you are no President Reagan.”

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Oh good grief, what made Reagan seem so great was that he followed Carter, you know, the fellow that presided over the Iran hostage situation, the dumping of Cuba’s prisons into Miami, and double digit inflation.

“Principles and values are important, but….”

The above should be the signature statement of the loony left. According to Jay, they’re important, but not as important as the fiat stimulus money that Oblahmah’s spreading around.

Cast your principles and values aside, and it gets real hard to look at the image in the mirror and put a razor to your throat…..

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Jay, I thought I was a conservative but things in the GOP have to change. When people think of the GOP here in Georgia they think of people that oppose Sunday alcohol sales. Are they going to buy beer on Sunday…NO, but they don’t want anyone else to either. They oppose immigration reform due to job losses…their jobs? NO. Jobs of people they hang out with? NO. They just have a problem with people not like them…And, God forbid that we allow someone with some horrible disease that wants to live as comfortable a life as the disease will allow by using cannabis. Oh, it MIGHT give more access to our children..Right..like they don’t have access now…So, just let the people suffer so they can play the what if game….The Grand Ole Party has become of symbol of intolerance and lack of compassion. What they fail to apparently notice is that most of America just doesn’t want to be that kind of a person much less belong to a whole group of similar thinking people. When Obama suggested that the battle isn’t between pro-life and pro-choice but to figure out a way to help people avoid getting in that situation in the first place, he sounded like a conservative….The GOP has seen the enemy and it is themselves….Quit being vile and hateful and try coming up with some good ideas that would make life better for people…maybe that would work..

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OMG!! That’s what weird about rainy days – you loose track of time.

Later dudes!

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While we’re speaking of myths Jay, what about Obama’s infactuation with being the second coming of Roosevelt? Roosevelt was the myth of all myth’s. Roosevelt was a basically a socialist who made a terrible situation far worse than it should have been. Do you know where and when the term “progressive” was termed Jay? Perhaps instead of vomiting talking points for a bunch of naive, liberal sycophants like the ones on this blog who want to play at Socialism you should do a little reading. I highly recommend that you and yours read a book entitled Lenin, Stalin and Hitler, The Age of Social Catastrophe, authored by a gentleman named Robert Gellately. As you read this book it is frightening how things that happened a hundred years ago are starting to replay themselves out again. The frightening part is this time it is happening in this country. No, there won’t be the millions of “kulaks” enslaved and placed in the Gulags to die but the class warfare and the wrong doing to the “proletariat” and just about every idealogical thing you and the democrats believe is there, right down to the control of a sympathetic media who, rather than report the truth, twist the story or totally ignore the implications of any action of their chosen “leader”. I saw on this blog today some liberal state they didn’t want anyone to tell them how to think. Take a very close look at what the democratic party has become. It is a party that totally wants to extinguish free thought and to eliminate anyone that disagrees with it. The venom and bile portrayed here and at every major new outlet each day by the liberals is palpable. It is scary when people follow without thinking. With Government control comes the abolishment of free thought. Lie to yourselves if you want but if you are not disturbed just a little by the cult-like following that our “watchdogs” and the public have for our current leader, you are too far gone. By the way Jay, you are a hypocrit of the worse kind.

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Offtopic Notice

Just read on Breitbart that House Democrats today unveiled a $95 billion war funding bill – and dropped funding to transfer prisoners from Gitmo.

I thought from the thread this morning on the whole prisoner relocation thing it was the Reps who were operating out of fear?

Wait, this is on topic with the Reagan thing: Democrats: Myth vs Reality.

Got it -

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Price

May 4th, 2009
4:27 pm

Well put.

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Reagan might have been a great president if he had been 15 or 20 years younger. His deference to his chief of staff was crippling. His compromise on Social Security was his lasting legacy with me. What a hare-brained idea. If he had insisted on reducing benefits as he wanted to, we could be almost completely trnsformed to a new system by now.

As for Jeb, he cut his own throat. The GOP will never forget Reagan, and his cult following will survive until the end. And that might not be far away.

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Seeing the shape that Florida is in these days, I don’t expect to see Jeb running for anything. His being in bed with the land developers and mortgage bankers has FL in a heap of trouble. No, I expect it’ll be 20 years before we hear from the bush clan again, and that will be too soon.

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He carried a big stick, but used it with carrots

I always thought Reagan WAS a carrot….

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The Bush clan have quite the history in real estate. Think S&L.

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TN- That wasn’t the question.

I’ll even entertain your little notion and expand my question to bookman, what was the combined federal tax rate before and after Reagan left office?

Don’t be skeered now.

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Me not being a lib and possessing some measure of modesty, it always cracks me up to hear the pinkos whining about the national debt, when you consider what Obozo is up to.

Egads, have you democrats no self awareness?

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Answer: A sadist and a fool.

Question: What do you call someone who left this on the forum====>” Oh heart be still: Bush/Palin in 2012 or better yet J. Bush/G.W. Bush in 2012.”

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Jay 5:38

One of Stockman’s major criticisms of Reagan and the Congress was they were quick to pass the tax cuts and Defense increase, but then did nothing with the spending cuts to balance things out.

Which is why I will continue to watch with interest how Pres Obama does with his “line by line examination of the budget to cut unneeded or wasteful federal programs.” He may be able to match Reagan’s rhetoric with action. Maybe.

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I think people get confused on a lot of things about Reagan. 1) RONALD Regan wasn’t president of the US, NANCY Regan was. Even before Iran Contra (”I just can’t remember” R. Reagan); Reagan was showing signs of Alzheimers and it was NANCY who was running the country. She was really our first female POTUS.

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Jay, REALITY says you CAN blame Congress for spending.

Congress passes the budget. Chief executives, especially one like Reagan who was less ideologue than pragmatist, submit budgets that had a chance to pass a Democrat-controlled Congress led by Tip O’Neill. He knew he didn’t have a prayer of getting spending cuts he really wanted past Tip. Anyone who has ever actually served in an elected position knows you either do one of two things: compromise to get something you want, or stick to your ideological guns. Reagan chose the former because he felt compromise was more important than ideology. In my opinion, it was the wrong choice.

This is why all that malarkey NJ has been plagiarizing from other sites doesn’t mean a thing. CONGRESS passes the budget. You need not know any other thing to know why government spending increases or decreases.

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Well, the ham hocks and beans were good but I can’t set still and see Bookman throw off on Reagan. He was a good President, it’s just his memory was bad. He didn’t know nothing about giving missiles to Iran or guns to the Contras or nothing else.

What we need today is what the Republicans want. Do nothing but cut taxes some more. And get rid of this Social Security and Medicare and all the other welfare programs. The economy will snap out of it when 15 or 20 million more loose their jobs. It might could get some of the libruls on that blog out and looking for a job if they got laid off.

We may not know what to do but we sure can blast what the librul Democrats do. Have a good night everybody.

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Congress writes legislation. The President signs it into law. If the President vetoes the legislation, then Congress can override with a 2/3 vote. Unless things have changed. Have they changed.

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Andy,

did your mom drop you on your head when you were a baby?

better yet — did you even have a mom? I suspect, strongly at that, that you were hatched.

Some species, let’s say snakes, just lay their eggs and leave the hatchlings to care for themselves.

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There is no doubt that he was the Great Communicator; and the words with which he so adeptly communicated live on. Not only his spoken words, but his written words, too — which survive in his own hand, in numerous speeches and letters he drafted on yellow pads.

Between 1975 and 1979, Reagan delivered 1,025 three-minute radio commentaries, of which he wrote at least 673 himself. About 70 percent were on domestic policy, 30 percent were on foreign policy and national defense — and all laid out his views on a wide range of issues. “I am surprised at times,” Reagan wrote in a January 1980 letter, “that there is so much lack of knowledge about my positions…. I took up virtually every subject mentionable and stated my views on those subjects, but I guess there were a lot of people who were not listening.”

And just think, the klown that posted at 6:44 worships a total bozo who can’t even announce a cabinet nominee without consulting his Teleprompter.

Lie yourselves to sleep, little democrat sheeples.

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hey Taxpayer!!

lay off Bonzo!!!

that guy was a terrific actor

in all seriousness, there’s a Ronald Reagan movie I just love: “The Killers”.

He plays a syndicate boss, and Angie Dickinson plays his moll.

great movie

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Hi Midori

If you wouldn’t mind, Google ‘Chef Point Cafe Watauga TX’

Check out the menu, then the reviews.

I’m going there tomorrow – going to take the folks. They’re coming over and I thought I’d say “how about we take you out tonight?” then we’ll drive up to this place….

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Sorry kiddies. Reagan raised taxes on the working poor and middle class 11 times.

His income tax cuts dropped the top level, those only paid by the wealthiest 2 percent from 70 percent to 28 percent, a 250 percent tax cut for them but he got rid of the lowest bracket, 10 percent and raised it to 15 percent, which of course raised taxes on millions of Americans by 50 percent.

Then when it came to paryoll taxes, which are only paid on working income, and is capped at the top income of the lowest 85 percent of workers, he raised that tax by about 15 percent:

Over the course of this week we’ll be hearing a lot about Ronald Reagan, much of it false. A number of news sources have already proclaimed Mr. Reagan the most popular president of modern times. In fact, though Mr. Reagan was very popular in 1984 and 1985, he spent the latter part of his presidency under the shadow of the Iran-Contra scandal. Bill Clinton had a slightly higher average Gallup approval rating, and a much higher rating during his last two years in office.

We’re also sure to hear that Mr. Reagan presided over an unmatched economic boom. Again, not true: the economy grew slightly faster under President Clinton, and, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, the after-tax income of a typical family, adjusted for inflation, rose more than twice as much from 1992 to 2000 as it did from 1980 to 1988.

But Ronald Reagan does hold a special place in the annals of tax policy, and not just as the patron saint of tax cuts. To his credit, he was more pragmatic and responsible than that; he followed his huge 1981 tax cut with two large tax increases. In fact, no peacetime president has raised taxes so much on so many people. This is not a criticism: the tale of those increases tells you a lot about what was right with President Reagan’s leadership, and what’s wrong with the leadership of George W. Bush.

The first Reagan tax increase came in 1982. By then it was clear that the budget projections used to justify the 1981 tax cut were wildly optimistic. In response, Mr. Reagan agreed to a sharp rollback of corporate tax cuts, and a smaller rollback of individual income tax cuts. Over all, the 1982 tax increase undid about a third of the 1981 cut; as a share of G.D.P., the increase was substantially larger than Mr. Clinton’s 1993 tax increase.

The contrast with President Bush is obvious. President Reagan, confronted with evidence that his tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible, changed course. President Bush, confronted with similar evidence, has pushed for even more tax cuts.

Mr. Reagan’s second tax increase was also motivated by a sense of responsibility — or at least that’s the way it seemed at the time. I’m referring to the Social Security Reform Act of 1983, which followed the recommendations of a commission led by Alan Greenspan. Its key provision was an increase in the payroll tax that pays for Social Security and Medicare hospital insurance.

For many middle- and low-income families, this tax increase more than undid any gains from Mr. Reagan’s income tax cuts. In 1980, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, middle-income families with children paid 8.2 percent of their income in income taxes, and 9.5 percent in payroll taxes. By 1988 the income tax share was down to 6.6 percent — but the payroll tax share was up to 11.8 percent, and the combined burden was up, not down.

Nonetheless, there was broad bipartisan support for the payroll tax increase because it was part of a deal. The public was told that the extra revenue would be used to build up a trust fund dedicated to the preservation of Social Security benefits, securing the system’s future. Thanks to the 1983 act, current projections show that under current rules, Social Security is good for at least 38 more years.

But George W. Bush has made it clear that he intends to renege on the deal. His officials insist that the trust fund is meaningless — which means that they don’t feel bound to honor the implied contract that dedicated the revenue generated by President Reagan’s payroll tax increase to paying for future Social Security benefits. Indeed, it’s clear from the arithmetic that the only way to sustain President Bush’s tax cuts in the long run will be with sharp cuts in both Social Security and Medicare benefits.

I did not and do not approve of President Reagan’s economic policies, which saddled the nation with trillions of dollars in debt. And as others will surely point out, some of the foreign policy shenanigans that took place on his watch, notably the Iran-contra scandal, foreshadowed the current debacle in Iraq (which, not coincidentally, involves some of the same actors).

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/08/opinion/the-great-taxer.html

Reagan was more the “Great Con Man” than he was “The Great Communicators”

Even more to the point, most conservative assertions about his tax cuts are false.

96 percent of the Reagan tax cuts to the wealthy were used to provide CEO’s with larger bonuses (Reagan also changed the deduction caps on executive compensation, which were limited to 25 times the income of a business. Reagan REMOVED the amount of executive remuneration which could be deducted on a businesses income taxes, igniting the executive bonus race. Before Reagan, the average CEO made 17 times the median U.S. income. In eight years, it went up to 250 times the median income..today it is 450 times the median income and Republicans have repeatedly blocked efforts to cap the income tax deductions again)

Faced with booming deficits, Reagan AGAIN raised gasoline taxes in 1983, which hit average working Americans much more than the rich.

Between 1982 and 84 Reagan raised taxes 4 times alone:

Faced with looming deficits, Reagan raised taxes again in 1983 with a gasoline tax and once more in 1984, this time by $50 billion over three years, mainly through closing tax loopholes for business. Despite the fact that such increases were anathema to conservatives–and probably cost Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush, reelection–Reagan raised taxes a grand total of four times just between 1982-84.
But after his initial victories on tax cuts and defense, the revolution effectively stalled. Deficits started to balloon, the recession soon deepened, his party lost ground in the 1982 midterms, and thereafter Reagan never seriously tried to enact the radical domestic agenda he’d campaigned on. Rather than abolish the departments of Energy and Education, as he had promised to do if elected president, Reagan added a new cabinet-level department–one of the largest federal agencies–the Department of Veterans Affairs…

The following year, Reagan made one of the greatest ideological about-faces in the history of the presidency, agreeing to a $165 billion bailout of Social Security. In almost every way, the bailout flew in the face of conservative ideology. It dramatically increased payroll taxes on employees and employers, brought a whole new class of recipients–new federal workers–into the system, and, for the first time, taxed Social Security benefits, and did so in the most liberal way: only those of upper-income recipients. (As an added affront to conservatives, the tax wasn’t indexed to inflation, meaning that more and more people have gradually had to pay it over time.)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0301.green.html

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Over Reagan’s first term, EPA’s overall budget was reduced by 3 5 percent (a cut Of 50 percent was proposed), enforcement against strip-mine violations declined by 62 percent, prosecution of hazardous-waste violations declined 50 percent, and FDA regulation enforcement declined 88 percent. Exposure limits on hazardous chemicals were raised above previous EPA levels, sometimes on the order of 10 to 100 times. The number of “emergency exemptions” for business for restrictions on pesticide use more than tripled (in 1982 better than 97 percent of business requests for such exemptions were approved by EPA). The Administration’s treatment of hazardous-waste problems may be taken as exemplary. At present, according to the Office of Technology Assessment, there are approximately 378,000 waste sites that may require corrective action. The vast majority (87 percent, on one estimate) pose threats of groundwater contamination. As Of 1985, the Reagan EPA had put only 850 Of these on its “priority” list for action. Of these, it cleaned up only six during its first term; whether they were cleaned properly and completely is sharply disputed. That year, with this record, the Administration proposed phasing out the “Superfund” for toxic-waste cleanup; for fiscal years 1984-85, it proposed no funding at all for the EPA’s groundwater programs.

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The Reagan Years (cont.) – At OSHA, for example, enforcement of existing law dropped precipitously, while the development of new workplace standards came to a virtual halt. Over the [fiscal year] 1980-82 period, OSHA complaint inspections declined 58 percent, while follow-up inspections declined 87 percent. Citations for violations of the act also fell, dropping 50 percent for serious violations, 91 percent for willful violations, and 65 percent for repeat violations. At the bottom line, total penalties (including both state and federal programs) dropped 78 percent, while failure-to-abate penalties fell 91 percent. By the end of Reagan’s first term, enforcement levels would have slid to a point where they provided virtually no deterrent to violations of the act. Manufacturers who violated the law could expect, on average, a penalty of only $6.50 for doing so. The agency also stalled repeatedly, and in some cases even suppressed its own studies of worker risk, in issuing standards for such known work-place carcinogens as asbestos, formaldehyde, and EDB. It would not be until June 1984 that the Reagan OSHA issued its first new final standard for a workplace carcinogen, which was immediately challenged in court as inadequate.”

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Most of us got over Ronnie a LONG time ago.

Back in the 70s and 80s I thought he was one of the biggest political horses a-sses to come down the pike. Wars on Drugs. Wars on Pornography. Dictator coddling around the globe. He and Ollie wiping the US Constitution with their arses. Their fake morality.

And later I realized he was very much a mixed bag – some good and a lot not good.

How ironic though, that twenty something years later that very so-so record would look like the absolute paragon of good governance relative to what was to come in the GOP.

And ultimately most significantly, it was he, in my opinion, that originally sent the Republicans careening off to the far-right fringes where they have since imploded.

But home spun homilies and simplistic tripe pre-packaged for a nation losing grey matter all the time sure was popular. Even among those goofball Reagan Democrats.

But as much as anything I realized, it was the yokels who fawned over him, and his overrated record, and still do, that were really the biggest problem in this country.

They later voted for BushCo like the blind Republican lemmings he taught them to be.

And then worst of all, there was that month long Faux News pukefest when he died a few years back.

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Its not history that shows Reagans low ratings, Its Gallop Polls taken while Reagan was president:

But a look at Gallup polling data brings a different perspective. Through most of his presidency, Reagan did not rate much higher than other post-World War II presidents. And during his first two years, Reagan’s approval ratings were quite low. His 52 percent average approval rating for his presidency places him sixth out of the past ten presidents, behind Kennedy (70 percent), Eisenhower (66 percent), George H.W. Bush (61 percent), Clinton (55 percent), and Johnson (55 percent). His popularity frequently dipped below 50 percent during his first term, plummeted to 46 percent during the Iran-Contra scandal, and never exceeded 68 percent. (By contrast, Clinton’s maximum approval rating hit 71 percent.)

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1832

And Carter was well head of Reagan, except for a turn of fortune in the Iran Hostage Crisis, which has finally been revealed to have been fixed by the Reagan campaign team when they had a secret arrangement with the Iranians, who hated Carter, to NOT release the hostages BEFORE the election. Declassified files of William Casey show that Reagan made a deal with the Islamic Government of Iran to not release the hostages BEFORE the election. It was Reagans trecherous October Surprise, and the payoff was in the missiles given to Iran in Iran Contra:

“October Surprise”

Upon the death of the shah in July (which neutralized one demand) and the Iraqi invasion of Iran in September (necessitating weapons acquisition), Iran became more amenable to reopening negotiations for the hostages’ release.

In the late stages of the presidential race with Ronald Reagan, Carter, given those new parameters, might have been able to bargain with the Iranians, which might have clinched the election for him. The 11th-hour heroics were dubbed an “October Surprise”* by the Reagan camp — something they did not want to see happen.

Allegations surfaced that William Casey, director of the Reagan campaign, and some CIA operatives, secretly met with Iranian officials in Europe to arrange for the hostages’ release, but not until after the election. If true, some observers aver, dealing with a hostile foreign government to achieve a domestic administration’s defeat would have been grounds for charges of treason.

Reagan won the election, partly because of the failure of the Carter administration to bring the hostages home. Within minutes of Reagan’s inauguration, the hostages were released. Under Reagan, the Iran-Contra Affair completes this story.

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h2021.html

Reagan basically used the American hostages in Iran to ensure his election. The Iranians were ready to release them in the early fall of 1980

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Let the man RIP and we still have the bushes to kick around.

The cons have Carter and Clinton to kick around.

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Reagan won an absolute landslide in 1984, the ultimate popularity contest so to speak, and to counter that, the libs trot out some fake polls.

hahahaha

What bozos, does the idiocy ever end with them?

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Getting over Reagan is a bad idea. Pretty much the entire set of events that has led to the current mess we are in, both economic as well as with Islamic terrorism, can be dumped on his historical doorstep.

If you dont want to take my word for it, How about the American Conservative Magazine, April, 2009, which has named Carter the best conservative of the last 30 35 years:

Carter Conservatism

The 39th president’s modest proposal

Jimmy Carter’s “Crisis of Confidence” speech, delivered from the Oval Office on July 15, 1979, has long been a symbol of Democratic defeat—and defeatism. Republican politicians from presidents on down have used it to tar Democrats as the party of “malaise,” a word that Carter himself never uttered in the address.

Rarely has a speech so backfired. Yet what if the text, obscured by recriminations, turns out to be one of the most conservative presidential statements of the last 30 years?…

The new anti-malaise coalition, Left and Right, agreed on a nationalism that regarded an America with any kind of limits as a place that could never be America in any meaningful sense. They believed in the divine American mission and the rhetoric behind it: “leader of the free world,” “the last best hope for man on earth,” “the shining city on a hill.” Carter’s speech, to them, was heresy. Thus Reagan, with help from other former liberals, could transform conservatism from a traditional doctrine of prudence, caution, and sustainability—a tough sell politically—into a highly marketable brand of American exceptionalism.

Unfortunately, as Carter feared, the American mission and lifestyle proved unsustainable. In the short run, the Saudis and other OPEC nations and oil producers slaked America’s dependence on foreign oil. The Chinese and other emerging industrial nations were willing to provide cheap consumer goods and buy U.S. Treasuries so that American consumers could have plenty of choices at the marketplace. This cut the inflation that bedeviled the Carter administration. In return, the U.S. military provided protection and stability around the globe through deficit financing. The hoped-for reduction of government that was a part of Reagan’s rhetoric was junked because it threatened to shatter the “you can have it all” coalition. Instead, government grew, in part through a neat trick called supply-side economics in which the New Deal, the New Frontier, and even the Great Society could be offered at low cost to taxpayers through massive levels of borrowing. Wrapped around all of this was a nationalistic attitude. The launching of a few cruise missiles every now and then disguised the loss of American economic independence.

After what happened to Carter, no American politician today is brave enough to ask for limits. Bush I said that our way of life is non-negotiable. Bush II told Americans to go shopping after 9/11. President Obama says Americans “will not apologize for our way of life.” President Carter is remembered as a weak man—yet no politician now (outside of perhaps Ron Paul) has the guts to make a similarly bold speech during our current economic crisis.

http://www.amconmag.com/article/2009/apr/06/00014/

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Paul,

also the prices seem to die for!!

they are in an abandoned Conoco station? LOL!!!!

Too bad they don’t have a liquor license.

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And this year another book “Tear Down this Myth” closely examines how the “Reagan Legacy Project” has been engaged in the almost Orwellian attempt to rewrite history, with regard to Reagan and turn a president who almost singlehandedly wrecked the United States economy into a hero

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Susan Meyers –

“hat I know is that the dissolution of our nation – in terms of citizens feeling any responsibility for one another – began and was nurtured under Ronald Reagan and accelerated under successive Bushes. ”

And this dissolution took a break when Clinton was in office? What a silly idea.

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No, no whining this time. Bush so screwed up priorities going into Iraq that the Taliban now controls almost 3/4ths of Afghanistan, and is dangerously close to taking over Pakistan, its nuclear aresenal, estimated to hold between 50 and 100 bombs, as well as its weapons grade materials reactors, capable of making enough fissionable materials to make 40 to 50 nuclear weapons a year.

This is all recent news, the Taliban advances on Islamabad starting in the last weeks of the Bush Administration, in order to seize as much territory as possible before the new administration, which stated it would invade Pakistan to prevent the Taliban from taking over Pakistans nukes, took power.

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The great Ronald Reagan — my ass.

Mr. Reagan is often credited with having caused the collapse of the Soviet Union, but this is doubtful. He did use the Cold War as a pretext for other interventions, including funding and support for horrific violence against the civilian population of Central America. In 1999 the United Nations determined that the massacres of tens of thousands of Guatemalans, mostly indigenous people, constituted “genocide.” These massacres — often involving grotesque torture — reached their peak under the rule of Mr. Reagan’s ally, the Guatemalan General Rios Montt. Tens of thousands of Salvadorans were also murdered during Mr. Reagan’s presidency by death squads affiliated with the U.S.-funded Salvadoran military.

The Reagan revolution continues today: the “war on terror” has replaced the Cold War as pretext for intervention abroad, including the disastrous war in Iraq. Tax cuts for the rich and huge increases in military spending have revived the era of giant budget deficits. As the Great Communicator used to say, “There they go again.”

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And then there’s that part about putting party before country – “thou shalt not talk evil of another republican”????????????????????

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The problem with you, Dave R, is that for a five year spell the majority of this country bought your crap.

And in return you bent them over.

You have what’s called a ‘credibility problem’

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Watch me as I unleash 5 book length spams in a row from Mad Harris-

Obozo official Kareem Dale confirms White House’s love for PMSNBC, we got a chill up our leg too, baby

ew

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TN- Pay attention to the bouncing ball.

Reagan spent on national defense, mostly because it was in a democrat produced shambles, Obozo spends MORE THAN THAT on ACORN.

Capiche?

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Gelding, you clearly do not understand elected officials at all.

For Reagan to uphold a veto, he needed a MINIMUM of 75% of all Republicans to vote with him to have his veto stick, and that was the BEST CASE scenario during his entire term of office. At one point, for two years, he needed 87% of all Republicans in the House to vote with him.

Sorry, that doesn’t happen very often, and almost never with a budget filled with pork for home.

He was also making deals with Tip O’Neill for increases in the defense budget. And yes, Taxpayer, his policy of out-spending the Soviet Union eventually DID cause it’s collapse – even if it did occur after his term ended.

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Bully for Russia, NJ. Bully.

So, why do you defend the Government-sponsored educational system that allegedly got us into this situation?

You libs crack me up. NJ points out how bad we are at education, and worships the very reason for it’s alleged collapse. I read a study about 5-7 years ago (and no, I don’t have the link to it) that showed that in equivalent knowledge, high schoolers from the mid-1920’s knew more real knowledge than the college graduates of the mid-1990’s. What happened in that timeframe? The movement to government-run schools and teacher’s unions.

And TW? You’re not ready to debate me yet. You don’t even know what I believe in, and I never voted for Bush.

And IR/YW? I don’t think NJ is Chad Harris. Chad usually wrote his own stuff; you could tell by the typos and the lunatic theories. NJ just posts what others think because he can’t think for himself. Kinda like Taxpayer in that regard.

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And even more sorry, but the prime reason that Reagan started up the cold war again was that Reagans own economists were telling him that because of the extremely high rate that the SOviet Economy had been growing between 1930 and throughout the 1950’s the Soviet Economy would pass the United States economy in capacity by end of his first term, in 1984:

ONCE UPON a time, Western opinion leaders found themselves both impressed and frightened by the extraordinary growth rates achieved by a set of Eastern economies. Although those economies were still substantially poorer and smaller than those of the West, the speed with which they had transformed themselves from peasant societies into industrial powerhouses, their continuing ability to achieve growth rates several times higher than the advanced nations, and their increasing ability to challenge or even surpass American and European technology in certain areas seemed to call into question the dominance not only of Western power but of Western ideology. The leaders of those nations did not share our faith in free markets or unlimited civil liberties. They asserted with increasing self confidence that their system was superior: societies that accepted strong, even authoritarian governments and were willing to limit individual liberties in the interest of the common good, take charge of their economics, and sacrifice short-run consumer interests for the sake of long-run growth would eventually outperform the increasingly chaotic societies of the West. And a growing minority of Western intellectuals agreed.

The gap between Western and Eastern economic performance eventually became a political issue. The Democrats recaptured the White House under the leadership of a young, energetic new president who pledged to “get the country moving again”–a pledge that, to him and his closest advisers, meant accelerating America’s economic growth to meet the Eastern challenge.

The time, of course, was the early 1960s. The dynamic young president was John F. Kennedy. The technological feats that so alarmed the West were the launch of Sputnik and the early Soviet lead in space. And the rapidly growing Eastern economies were those of the Soviet Union and its satellite nations.

http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/myth.html

Basically put the Soviet Economy did for Russia in a very short span of time, what it took the American economy three times as long to accomplish.

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Actually, Dave R, you’re right – I don’t know much about you. But I do know that for a solid five year period drivel like yours was taken as law when compared to the likes of what NJ has to offer. That you have the audacity to call what you spew ‘debate’ pretty much sums up my point.

And the results of that misguided period have been devastating.

So, continue your war against the United States Government, continue your war on education, but call it into the O’Reilly Factor – people who read don’t buy it

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Gelding, The Soviet Union wasn’t a direct threat to us, but to our allies in NATO. I hate to have to stand on treaty, but we were stuck with them.

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Taxpayer. Think unions. Think real hard. I know you don’t have it in you, but try.

Manufacturing jobs left this country because the UNIONS made it too darned expensive to produce goods as in other countries. That is why we have become a services-based economy.

And people who succeed usually keep doing the same things they did to succeed, so their incomes usually grow faster than those who make poor choices in life.

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