From: popec@unkaphaed.gbdata.com (William C. Barwell)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dan-quayle
Subject: Re: the real Reagan record
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 03:02:19 GMT
Organization: Unka Phaed's UUCP Thingy, Houston, TX

erics@infoserv.com (Eric S. Smith) writes:

> 
> <DURRETT@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> writes:
> 
> > From 1977-1980, inclusive,
> > Jimmy Carter was in office! At the very least, I would think we would
> > agree that Carter had a different philosophy in this regard than Reagan.
> > This is very likely a good example of lying with statistics. What we
> > really need to address the issue properly is the same statistic for the
> > period 1982-19<latest available>.
> 
> I doubt that one year of the Carter administration made any difference
> in terms of something like average family income over the '80s, if that's
> what you're trying to say.
> 
> [...]
> > My suspicion
> > is that the perceived failure(whether real or not) of so-called
> > trickle-down economics is due largely to the fact that we financed it
> > by running up the debt, thus sucking much of the money which should
> > have financed investment in productive jobs at low overhead(i.e., more
> > goods/jobs/services per dollar invested) into $600 toilet seats,
> > (what I perceive to be needless) research into SDI, and other weapons
> > development. It was a wasted opportunity, and now we will pay for it.
> > When Reagan took office, the US debt was (just) under $1T, and increasing
> > at a rate of 5-10%/year. Now it's $4T, and increasing at 10%/year. I
> > don't know by how much the GNP grew, but I suspect it wasn't 300%.
> 
> I think you are entirely correct.
> 
> > What clearly happened was that the ReaganBush administrations didn't
> > believe in supply-side economics, because if they did, they didn't
> > practice it. It's kind of like believing in safe sex, but dying of AIDS
> > because you couldn't be bothered to use a condom.
> 
> I think Reagan believed in trickle-down economic (I'm not sure Bush
> believed in *anything*), and certainly Reagan's economic advisors did,
> until it was clear that it was a failure. The problem was that in practice
> it just didn't work. Politically, they were unable to make spending
> cuts in entitlement programs because too many people depend on them,
> and they were unwilling to make cuts elsewhere like the defense budget,
> because Reagan had promised a strong defense. It was incredibly naive
> to believe that Reagan could deliver his triad of campaign promises:
> increase defense spending, cut taxes AND balance the budget. Yet many
> people believed what they wanted to hear.
> 
> > *We* may get lucky,
> > though. We might be able to bail ourselves out of it. But I'm not
> > holding my breath.
> 
> Oh, things aren't that bad. It's possible to recover from this situation,
> but anyone who expects everything to be fixed in four years will be
> disappointed.
> 
> 
> -----
> Eric Smith
> erics@infoserv.com
> CI$: 70262,3610
> 
> 


No quite the opposite, Reagan believed in Reaganomics, David Stockman did 
not. Some of Reagan's people did, some did not.
  Read Stockman's book "the Triumph Of Politics" for details.  An amazing 
book.  Tells how Reaganomics failed and why.  It is must reading.
Even if it sometimes lies by ommision.  (For instance, it leaves out all 
mention of 'the New Federalism', even when germane to the topic.0

Pope Charles.

--
popec@unkaphaed.gbdata.com (William C. Barwell)
Unka Phaed's UUCP Thingy, Houston, TX, (713) 943-2728
1200/2400/9600/14400 v.32bis/v.42bis
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dan-quayle,alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.misc