From: steve@celia.UUCP (Steve Tyree)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.rush-limbaugh
Subject: Re: Political Math
Date: 23 Jul 92 18:41:40 GMT
Reply-To: celia!steve@usc.edu (Steve Tyree)
Organization: Rhythm & Hues, Inc., Hollywood

In article <1992Jul23.021150.7865@umbc3.umbc.edu> alex@umbc4.umbc.edu (Alex S. Crain) writes:
>In article <1728@celia.UUCP> celia!steve@usc.edu (Steve Tyree) writes:
>
>>If you index the yearly deficit as a percentage of GNP, it was going DOWN as 
>>reagan left office. Congress's post reagan spending spree and the S and L
>>bailout has caused the yearly deficit to increase substantially as a per-
>>centage of GNP under Bush. 
>
>	Um, right, sortof. The only way that worked was because the Fed
>decided that the Social Security surplus was income, like taxes. If you
>didn't count social security (and put it in escrow, like some people
>though you should), the deficit wouldn't have dropped.
>
>	Even if you count social security as OK, it's still fishy to
>call it deficit reduction, because it all comes back when social security
>crosses back into the red, in about 10 years - but Reagans best problems
>were all left for someone else to clean up.
>

 Heres a real explanation for why the yearly deficit went down. This also
explains why we conservatives ran a candidate against bush. He gave us a
taste of democratic economic strategy and it caused a short recession to
become longer. Dan Quayle stated recently that George Bush was also factor-
ing in the expenses of Desert Shield and Storm into his explanations for
signing off on congresses post reagan spending spree.

The Goofy Politics of George Bush
by John O'Sullivan
2/3/1992

......

"The tax-spend-and-elect strategy of the Democrats had been rendered inopera-
tive by three fiscal changes of the 1980's.
 - The elimination of "indexing" under the 1981 tax reforms deprived the Fed-
   eral Government of automatic increases in revenue due to inflation.
 - The Gramm-Rudman mechanism for reducing the deficit laid down that if the
   requisite spending cuts were not agreed between the Presidency and Congress,
   an automatic process of sequestration would impose them.
 - And President Reagan had established a credible threat to veto any tax 
   hikes.
 Together these changes forced the government to bring its spending into line
with revenue that could increase only as a result of economic growth.
 The federal deficit fell from 6.3 % of gross national product in 1983 to 3 %
in 1989; and the annual rate of increase in federal spending, which had been
11 % in the ten years to 1985, was cut to 4 % annually from 1985 to 1988. As
a result, it became all but impossible for the Democrats to buy votes with
spending programs since such programs had to be, in effect, self-financing.
When a classic liberal welfare measure, the Catastrophic Health Insurance
Act, was passed in 1988, it included a tax surcharge on older taxpayers who
were the bill's intended beneficiaries. The result was popular outcry, the
heart warming sight of Representative Dan Rostenkowski nearly being lynched
by a mob of senior citizens, and cancelllation of the law.

......

Reprinted without permission from:
 National Review
 150 East 35th Street
 New Yourk, NY 10016


 Steve Tyree - These opinions are mine and mine alone.
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.rush-limbaugh