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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RMF who wrote (42562)	4/5/2010 8:34:21 AM
From: Peter Dierks	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

"You Were Right About Obama" I knew it would happen, and today it did. I received a call from a former client and friend, a guy in his late 70s, who was a huge Obama supporter and a fairly mainstream liberal and Democrat. In the past my friend very much enjoyed getting me agitated by frequently mentioning the latest Frank Rich or Maureen Dowd column about the evil of Sarah Palin. At his age, getting me aggravated was pretty much his main form of entertainment. In the months after the election the relationship was somewhat strained. There were certain things we just didn't talk about, although he would poke me in the political eye from time to time. I haven't spoken to my friend in many months, probably since the fall or summer. So I was pleased when his name showed up as an incoming call on my cell phone, although I wondered how we would dance around the subject of Him. The first sentence out of his mouth was, "Let's get it out of the way, you were right about Obama." Not being satisfied with mere contrition, I asked him whether he was bs-ing me, and he said no, he meant it. My friend spends half the year in Florida along with his similarly ancient friends. He's predicting a "Republican sweep" in November, although his dissatisfaction with Obama is not the result of a conversion to conservatism. He feels that Obama broke so many promises, and "he's just another politician." If Obama has lost my friend, the Frank Rich-loving, Sarah Palin-hating greedy Democratic geezer that he is, the Democrats are in deep electoral trouble. legalinsurrection.blogspot.com From: Brumar89

To: RMF who wrote (42562)	4/5/2010 1:25:55 PM
From: TimF	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Look at the RESULTS... I did. The results where more freedom (within the context of what's covered by the taxes, and the direct results of the change, not necessarily more freedom in general, the later is a complex issue), and a great deal of economic growth (the Reagan years where good, but I'm not just talking about those years, even with the increases under Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton, the marginal rates remained well below the pre-Reagan rates, which contributed to the long period of general economic growth from the end of the early 80s recession to close to the end of the 20th century). but Reagan TRIPLED that debt in his EIGHT years. A lousy measure. If the debt was one penny, and then it became three it would be tripled. Which is not to say the situation was anything like that, the debt didn't start out tiny, but "doubled, tripled", increase by xxxx% etc., are all measures based off of what the old debt was, and the more debt we had in the past the lower the impact of the new debt seems to be. The reality is the opposite. The more debt we had in the past, the worst adding new debt is. "Tripled" is a meaningless measure. In terms of increases in debt, I would look to the deficits as a percentage of GDP. Reagan's where high in this regard, too high for comfort, but the higher military spending helped set us up for the later "peace dividend", and generally prepared our military for the decades to come (we are still using a lot of that equipment now, without buying it we would either be using "ancient" equipment, or Clinton or Bush would have had to have had much higher spending on military procurement). As for the social side, Reagan unfortunately had little ability to control that, the Dems generally had a majority of congress when he was president (they controlled the house the whole time), and a lot of social spending is entitlements which are even harder to change. Which doesn't mean I think Reagan should be given a pass for deficits, he had large deficits, and its partially his fault, but overall the results of his presidency where very positive (and the deficits where much lower than the current ones). Reagan's ONLY legacy is this "lower tax" stuff. No its not his only positive legacy, and in any case it was itself a major positive. 70% top tax rates are just foolish. And his tax legacy includes reform and simplification, not just lower rates (unfortunately that part of the legacy didn't last, the presidents since have added added a lot of complexity)