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Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (373)	8/3/1998 10:10:00 PM
From: jlallen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13994

Bill: A comment on Ronald Reagan and Iran/Contra. I think that without question, Ronald Reagan was the greatest President in the post war (WWII) period. In the long term the defeat of Communism and the end of the Cold War must properly be laid at his feet. Nevertheless, he made some stunning mistakes. One of them was Iran/Contra. The mistake he made was to allow Congress to criminalize the pursuit and execution of foreign policy decisions, a province which is undeniably that of the Executive under our Constitution. That law (Boland Amendment) should have been immediately challenged and struck down as an affront to the separation of powers. His second mistake was not to hold the Democrat Congress accountable for the massive deficits which accrued in his Administration. Despite the popular lore, tax receipts increased dramatically during the Reagan years but not enough to keep up with the profligate Democrat spending in those years. Congress and not the Executive has the power of the purse strings and those "Reagan deficits" could easily have been snuffed out by the Congress if they so chose. Instead, they had it both ways, blaming Reagan for their deficit and enjoying the political benefit of the constituents support who were served by the government largesse. JLA