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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (110888)	5/7/2009 4:50:30 PM
From: Paul Kern	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541557

You really want to look at sane people in the eye and say that the balanced budget from more revenue (tax hike) and decrease in military spending was the result of republicans decisions? You need to remember that ALL good things emanate from the policies of the sainted Ronald Reagan and ALL bad things come from the Democrats. This is not debatable. It is fact as in the fact that the earth all things on it were created in seven days.

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (110888)	5/7/2009 5:00:29 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 541557

Not bull its the truth. You had reasonably large deficits and projections of yet larger ones until after the Republicans took over congress. Perhaps its not a "Republican's took over" thing, but a divided government thing, with each side restraining the other, but either way having the Republicans in power in congress was important. Clinton initially called for significant increases in federal spending, which mostly didn't happen. Then the economy grew enough to shrink the deficit. Military reductions where a part of that, but that's largely Clinton being lucky enough to be in a post cold war situation that allowed for large reductions. Clinton was president for most of the "peace dividend". He also had good timing in other ways. He was elected president right after a recession had ended (so he had a relative low point to grow from, and also growth had already started when he took office), then he was president during the tech bubble which increased revenue, then his term ended before the bubble ending turned in to another recession. You really want to look at sane people in the eye and say that the balanced budget from more revenue (tax hike) and decrease in military spending was the result of republicans decisions? The decrease in military spending was indirectly a result of Republican decisions. The previous buildup helped bring the cold war to a close, and even if you discount that idea, it left the military with a lot of new equipment which would not have to be quickly replaced. But more importantly those where far from the only reasons for the reduction of the budget deficit. Reasons that didn't have much to do with either party (such as the tech bubble), and reasons that had to do with the Republicans (preventing new programs and other forms of spending increases that Clinton had originally pushed) where also important.