From: allan@cs.cornell.edu (James Allan)
Subject: Re: SC rally: "We don't want a draft dodger for president!"
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY 14853
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 16:45:48 GMT

kmitche@eis.calstate.edu (Kenneth Mitchell) writes:
>Oh, really? 12 disastrous years? What country do you get your news from? 

>In the U.S., we started 1980 with 12% inflation, 20+% interest rates,
>unemployment nearly double what it is now, and a resurgent, aggressive
>USSR. 

As has been posted before, unemployment peaked in 1987 under Reagan.
The official numbers make it appear that it peaked under Carter, but
the figures have to be adjusted so that they're all calculated the
same way--the methods for determining unemployment were changed while
Reagan was in office, yielding lower numbers that would have been
given before.

>The USSR is gone, having self-destructed in the race to get ahead of us
>militarily. It was expensive for us, too, but the alternatives would have
>been FAR worse. 

That's a hypothetical argument and can be made both ways.  The Soviet
Union was economically in miserable shape and fast heading toward a
collapse anyway.  It's arguable that massive defense spending on the
part of the US contributed to that collapse; it's also arguable that
it didn't contribute at all.

But the point is no longer whether it was a good policy, the point is
how it should have been (and now must be) paid for.  Reagan did it by
borrowing heavily from "the future" by creating massive debt.  If the
alternatives to massive military buildup were so horrible, why
couldn't we pay for it then?  And somehow, despite the retoric
supporting it, I'm disinclined to believe that massive tax cuts will
do the trick.

>Inflation is now essentially zero. Interest rates haven't been this low in
>decades. The only reason that we're having this recession now is that
>the democrats in congress (I capitalize neither "democrat" nor "congress",
>because they don't deserve the honor) enacted (yes, with George Bush's
>connivance) the biggest tax increase in history, which forced many
>businesses into bankruptcy and caused countless others to scale back. 

Low interest rates and a massive deficit are discouraging investors
from putting money into the US economy: why invest in the US at 3%
when you can invest in Germany at 9%?

>The average American can clearly see that he was better off under Reagan
>than Carter. And while I hold no particular admiration for Bush (who
>pronounced Reagan's plans as "voodoo economics" back in 1980), he can't
>possibly be as bad as Clinton. 

Hmmph.  I can't even begin to believe that the country was better off
under Reagan than under Carter.  Things certainly looked better, but
it was mostly an illusion--and as the Hollywood trimmings are slowing
ripping apart, it's more and more apparent what damage was done behind
the scenes.

>Of course, if you LIKE the current recession, you'll LOVE what Clinton's
>tax-and-spend economic plan will do to the country!

Actually, I admit that's my big concern with all this.  Clinton has
some very good proposals that are worth implementing and which will
probably prove beneficial over the long haul.  But putting them in
place along with trying to fix up the massive damage done by Reagan's
and Bush's administrations is going to be quite painful.  My concern
is that the plans of a Clinton administration will be seen as the
culprit, when in fact it is a Republican legacy which is at fault.