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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs
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To: RMF who wrote (68536)12/29/2013 2:28:31 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (1) of 71588
 
I think Reagan WAS the father of "modern" deficits.

I believe you think it, but it isn't true.

Many of FDR's interventions where factors in the great depression lasting so long, but opinions on that are irrelevant to the point of his large deficits. If he is not "the father" of large peacetime deficits it would only be because Hoover also had large peace time deficits.

A $1 Trillion Dollar national debt in 1980 could have been handled quite easily with our economy at that time.

Not without a lot of restraint on spending, which was unlikely to happen considering the fraction (even then and much more so now) of the spending that's on auto-pilot as entitlements.

The problems began in earnest when the Reagan Administration started making $200 billion+ yearly deficits the NORM.

$200bil deficits were sustainable, even with the smaller economy back then. $1tril plus not so much.

And you'll probably answer that by saying the Democrats controlled Congress during the Reagan Administration

I wasn't going to answer that, but it was true, and an important factor. Without the Democrats in congress pushing for more spending deficits would have been lower.

but they ALSO controlled Congress during MOST of the "previous" Administrations and we never really saw that big build up of debt PRIOR to Reagan.

False, and also not particularly relevant. The later because some modicum of restraint by Democrats in the past doesn't, and didn't, force the Democrats in the 80s to be restrained.
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