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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (69845)	1/12/2009 12:12:15 AM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

Reagan's deficit spending appalled me when I first saw the graph. So very Californian, y'know? Party now; the Big One will come along and wipe out the credit card mainframes. Look innocent! Being an actor helped... cheers "Mourning in America"

To: koan who wrote (69845)	1/12/2009 11:47:59 AM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

Why didn't bush tax us for the war? If Bush did increase taxes, it wouldn't have mostly been for the war. The majority of the increase in spending under Bush has NOT been for the war. Spending went up a trillion a year, the war is maybe 15% of that. Believe what you will, but the deficit started rising with Reagan and the only surpluses were during clintons presidency. I didn't say anything about when deficits started. The point about when they started isn't directly relevant to the issues I was talking about, and its not very relevant to most of the issues raised in your post that I replied to. But if you want to change the topic, fine. Reagan had fairly large deficits (yes they where "record deficits" at the time, but thats in nominal dollars which isn't a very meaningful point in the context of inflation, and also a growing economy, percentage of GDP is probably the most important measure, and they where far from setting new records by that standard), but borrowing the money helped bring and end to the cold war. (Not that it all went to the military, entitlement spending increased a lot, probably taking up more new money, and certainly more total money, than defense spending). Also Volker had to impose very tight money, creating one of the worst post WWII recessions, in order to reign in the inflation of the 70s. Reagan's tax cuts, and tax reforms, helped us grow out of that and set up for longer term economic growth. Clinton benefited from both the "peace dividend", and other factors resulting from Regan's policies, also he took over as the economy was pulling out of a recession, not as one was needed to stop severe inflation. But he still didn't get surpluses, until a Republican congress was elected.