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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (126452)	2/11/2001 11:10:25 AM
From: ecommerceman	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769670

Necon--Oh, I'd never argue that Congress didn't play an important role in the burgeoning deficits of the 1980s--and, as you know, the Republicans controlled the Senate for six of the eight years of Reagan's presidency (your post didn't seem to acknowledge that fact). But the Democrats played a real role, too, not only for passing Reagan's ill-advised budget in 1981, but also for getting into an insane bidding war with Republicans on it (and, I'll admit, they passed a lot of crapola through the 80's, also--there's plenty o' blame to pass around for BOTH parties, in my view). My point is that the supposed great deficit hawk Reagan never ONCE submitted a balanced budget to Congress, a fact that is almost never acknowledged by Reagan acolytes... I will say, however, that I enjoy your posts; they are well-reasoned and thoughtful even when, in my view, they are wrong... :-) ___________________________ Budget Myths President Reagan entered the White House with an attitude of working honest deals with the Congress on spending. He wanted more defense spending, lower entitlement spending, lower tax rates which would boost the economy (and thus revenues) and seemed to achieve that agreement with Congress in both 1981 and 1982. However, despite getting concessions on taxes, congress never once cut spending, and the actual budgets were higher than what Reagan asked for 7 out of 8 years. This attitude of "cut spending later" helped continue the debt trends that began under Ford and Carter. By the end of Reagans terms, debt had increased by $2 trillion. We've all heard the myth: President Reagan asked for far more spending than congress wanted and/or congress actually spent less than what Reagan asked for...yet the truth once again tells a different story. (For more on this, use this URL: reagan.webteamone.com )