🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <CStandley.0gwe@nesbbx.rain.COM>,
Charles D. Standley <CStandley@nesbbx.rain.COM> wrote:
>In <4e8b6o$3du@engr.orst.edu>, daver@mycroft.ECE.ORST.EDU (Dave Rabinowitz)
>writes:
>> You weren't listening, were you?  The current federal deficit is lower
>> today than it has been since before Reagan, and if the government didn't
>> have to pay interest on the trillions of dollars of debt piled up under
>> Reaganomics there would be no deficit at all!  Ronald Reagan promised to
>> balance the federal budget in 2 years and in 8 years ended up borrowing
>> more money than had been borrowed by the federal government in the previous
>> 200 years.  Bush didn't do much better.  Clinton has significantly reduced
>> the deficit.  Makes you wonder who is actually "walking the walk".
>        
>I don't believe it. Another person who has been scammed about Reagonomics.
>Look at all the facts. Mainly, that bond laws changed PRIOR to Reagan
>becomming president, and that CONGREESS controls the budget, not the
>President. The President can only sign the budget, or veto it. Thre real
>cause of the budget escalation is "Entitlements", started what, around
>Kennedy's and Johnson's time?

Oops!  Be careful.  That business about CONGRESS controling the budget was
the party line before the Republicans gained control of Congress.  Now they
don't control the budget any longer.  The president does.  ;-)  It is
fairly easy to see that the president does not introduce budgets, but
Congress cannot just ignore him, either.  Reagan pretty much had his way
with Congress.  He was able to gain enough Democratic votes (conservative
Democrats, to be sure--you've seen a few of them abandonning ship for the
other party recently) to add to the Republican minority.  The only thing
stopping the Republican Congress now is that they can't get enough votes to
override a veto.  Hence, they are forced to take the president's wishes
into account, just as they were under Reagan, who had more control of
Congress than Clinton does.  

>We need a solid economy with little government interferance so demand for
>goods will grow. This will in turn cause more employment. When unemployment
>figures reduce enough, wages will increase. Rean understood the dynamic
>economy, but congress only worked with him for about a year. Congress is to
>blame, not Reagan!
>
I doubt you'll be singing the same tune in the coming election.  The fact
is that Reagan understood the "dynamic economy" about as well as Herbert
Hoover did.  If Reagan had been more of the laissez faire politician that
his Republican predecessor was, we probably wouldn't be in the mess that we
are today.  It was Hoover's misfortune to be president at a time when the
economy needed an activist reformer.  It was our misfortune that Reagan was
president when it didn't.  So far we have been lucky to have Clinton in
place to stop the worst foolishness.  If it hadn't been for him, we'd be
saddled with the bill for a new Star Wars anti-missile defense deployment.
Just what we need from the Republicans--more big govenment spending programs.
-- 
Rick Wojcik  rickw@eskimo.com     Seattle (for locals: Bellevue), WA
             http://www.eskimo.com/~rickw/