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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (186389)	4/20/2004 8:14:50 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576627

Whether costs exploded before or during Reagan's watch is unimportant. You where arguing that they did What's important is the bottom line............budget deficits as a percent of GDP, your favorite parameter, "exploded" under Reagan/Bush I, and again under Bush II. There is no other argument. The GOP is bad for our economic well being period. You go from "budget deficits as a percentage of GDP exploded" under 3 Republican presidents to "GOP is bad for our economic well being". That's a huge jump. Three particular presidents are not all GOP presidents. GOP presidents are not all of GOP. (for example the GOP congress had a lot to do with the reduction of debt percentage in Clinton's second term), and for that matter the budget deficit as a percentage of GDP is not the same as "our economic well being". For example the percentage went up a lot under Reagan but so did our economic well being. Also the actions and policies of one presidency (or congress) effect the economy and the government debt levels after they where in office. Part of the debt under Republicans is due to the policies of previous democrats and the political force of current democrats, similarly part of the debt under Democrats is the fault of Republicans. Clinton benefited from the end of the cold war and also from the overhand of Reagan's defense spending allowing him to make big cuts. OTOH he was hurt by having to pay the interest on the debt occurred by the Republican presidents before him. But he also benefited from the economy and from the Republican congress's restraint on spending. Reagan benefited from the fact that the presidents before him (many of them Democrats) had lowered the "debt ratio". But his own ratio suffered from the fact that they had let the military decline. All in all I still have to give the last three GOP presidents some blame for the debt, esp. the debt occurred when GOP controlled congress as well. But its a big jump from there to "GOP is bad for our economic well being." If you just want to say "the debt level increased under Reagan and the two Bush's". Then I will agree with you. They didn't do a good job of controlling debt or even of controlling spending. Tim