From: cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok)
Subject: Re: Negative Income Tax (Was: Social programs)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 01:48:07 GMT

In article <1992Dec30.164821.14595@news.columbia.edu> gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare) writes:
>cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok) writes:
>>gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare) writes:
>>
>>>[Re: Reagan and Thatcher and spending cuts ...]
>>>>>they threw up their hands halfway through their first terms.
>>>>
>>>>total, unadulterated bull. Reagan's deficits were horrendous all
>>>>through his terms.
>>>
>>>That's what I meant.  Slow down and read more carefully next time.
>>
>>bull that's what you meant. slow down and *think* more carefully next time.
>>
>>you put Reagan and Thatcher in the same class as "fiscal
>>conservatives". Thatcher was. Reagan was not. Reagan never *was*. 
>
>However, numerous guests from the Republican and Libertarian side
>on CNN Crossfire persist in that notion, and that is the general
>impression that has been left on people.  John C. Whitehead, who
>is now a senior partner at Goldman Sachs, former undersecretary
>in the Reagan State Dept. and the chairman of the foundation that
>runs the private grad dormitory that I live in has expressed that
>viewpoint in his speeches and directly to me over drinks.

(yawn)
still quoting names and opinions? look at the *facts* Gary.
i thought you had learned something from our previous discussion.

>>you stated that they threw up their hands "halfway" through their
>>first terms. "throwing up one's hands" implies trying something and
>>being frustrated. Reagan never tried to be a fiscal conservative.  
>
>I cited David Stockman's book in our last go-round; the Reaganites
>came in with machetes and axes sharpened, but Dave's surveys showed
>that none of them were willing to attack sacred cows dear to them
>thus leaving a consensus of near-zero.

we're talking about Reagan here -- *he* came in with no machetes nor
axes: he came in with a chequebook. what a pathetic attempt to
distract from the real point at hand.

>>he increased the deficit 62% his first year in power, and another 62%
>>*over that* the next year. that is not fiscally conservative by any
>>stretch of the imagination. 
>
>Reagan came in as a fiscal conservative and talked well enough that
>people like John C. Whitehead, senior partners from Shearman Sterling
>(a Wall Street law firm), and many others believed it.  The record
>shows otherwise.  As I said, he threw up his hands ...

he *talked*. so what? he could claim he was the Queen of England too.
would that make it so? are you such a sheep that when someone claims
to be something you not only believe them *before* they prove otherwise
but also *after*? "oh gee, he said he was a fiscal conservative. he must
have been. he wouldn't lie about something like that would he? it doesn't
really matter what he did anyway, it's what he *said* that counts". sheesh.

>>Thatcher's record is quite a different story.
>
>She faced down Arthur Scargill and the coal miners in a much better
>and nobler fashion than Reagan dealt with the air controllers.  Fine.
>But a regular reading of The Economist (the only newsmagazine worth
>bothering with besides Macleans, which is merely default for news on
>Canada) will show that Mags had to deal with much entrenchment, too.
>Over a decade, there was little reform to the National Health Service
>while even the Italians are now gutsy enough to transition theirs to
>an insurance system like Canada, France and Germany which enshrines
>private doctor choice (the single budget allotment to private practice
>that was done at the *end* of Thatcher's time isn't any different from
>the "keep the change" allotments that HMO's assign to their doctors 
>... 'cos NHS and HMO's operate under the same practices with the same
>resulting grief cited by their patients (NYT, 12/26)).

(yawn)
nice off-topic story, but no justification for your position.
we were talking about fiscal responsibility.
then again, what else is new? the only thing missing was Paul Martin Jr...

>
>>as i challenged you in the previous post, provide some numbers.
>
>The numbers, such as you cited and other references are regularly
>cited in Talk.politics.misc ... if you have the time, hang out there.

Reagan's fiscal record is readily known to anyone who "has the time"
to remove his blinders and earplugs. there is no need to hang around
t.p.misc to know that Reagan was not a fiscal conservative. nice try.

>Or, get me a job that'll justify my reading beyond the Times Business
>and the Wall Street Journal ... (10 days prepaid in Bermuda with the
>reading list of your choice would be fine, too.)  I have better things
>to do than scan tables of the public record and paste them up on USENET

of course. you have lots of irrelevant stories to write and valid points
to ignore.. that can't be easy..

>... but you're welcome to; I haven't seen any numbers from you, either.

you quoted some from me in your own posting, you... you... (expletive deleted)

besides, you made the claim, Gary... so it is *your* responsibility to
justify it. understand??????
and since you have *never* been able to back up *any* of your bogus claims
with numbers, i knew you'd not surprise me here either. so i will gladly
provide you with some more numbers for you to ignore...

Thatcher turned an $18.1B deficit into a $5.9B surplus. she used the
surpluses to pay back $47.7B of Britain's debt, reducing it from 51%
of GDP in 1979 to 27% in 1990. 

what did Reagan do? he inherited a budget deficit of $80B and a national
debt of $909B. when he took office, he claimed
that "the federal budget is out of control" and "the ship of state
is somewhat out of control". 

he then proceeded to be "fiscally conservative" by running up deficits
of $128B, $208B, $185B, $212B, $221B, $150B, and $155B, leaving us with
with a $2.6 trillion national debt, almost *triple* what it was when he
took power. in 1986, the US became the largest debtor nation in the world.
US debt now stands at over 60% of GDP (Canada's is much more than this even).

and -- Reagan did all this during a time of great economic expansion.
so don't tell me about how Reagan and Thatcher are in the same class.

quick Gary -- get that delete key tapping...

--
charles
Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada,can.politics