From: best@anasazi.com (Mike Best)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.rush-limbaugh
Subject: Re: The price of freedom
Date: 27 Jul 92 20:02:21 GMT
Organization: Anasazi Inc, Phoenix AZ USA

In article <nate.371@psygate.psych.indiana.edu> nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu (Nathan Engle) writes:
>steve@celia.UUCP (Steve Tyree) writes:
>>nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu (Nathan Engle) 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. 
>
>    Well, maybe it's unfair of me to do so, but I'm still old-fashioned 
>enough to hold Reagon at least partly responsible for the S&L mess. 
>Reagon's deregulation of the S&L's created a really neato short-term 
>economic growth pattern which made Reagon's statistics look better as
>he left office ("Golden Parachute"?), but I hope we would agree that 
>the deregulation of the S&L's was not one of Reagon's most successful
>policies?
>
Sorry to jump in the middle but...  Deregulation is not the major cause
behind the S&L problem.  The devaluation of real estate due to the 1986
federal tax law changes is the instigating and sustaining cause.  The
S&Ls, like ordinary citizens, saw real estate as a good investment for
a myriad of reasons.  Unfortunately, the Democrats saw people succeding
and put an end to that.  More unfortunate is that ReagAn signed the dang
bill, for that he deserves derision but not for deregulation per se.

>    Call me a nutcase, if you wish, but I still think that much of Reagon's
>"economic recovery" was gained at the expense of selling out the future.
>That's why I'm frustrated by Reagon's continuing "Teflon" surface. 
>Many Republicans invoke the name of Jimmy Carter as though he were the 
>devil incarnate, but when it comes to the mud that ought to be sticking 
>to their fair-haired boy it seems like they develope a case of selective
>color-blindness.
>
ok, you asked for it :)

If you are claiming that the huge rise in economic prosperity is due to
government spending then I think you've come to an illogical conclusion.
First of all, more than 2/3rds of the deficit spending is on entitlements
and interest on the debt.  Did entitlements fuel the economy?  Did those
receiving entitlements invest venture capital in startup companies that
were prolific in the 80's?  Not likely, Reagans policies allowed people
to keep their money and invest it themselves - much more efficient than
a government program.

Today a mere 28 percent (according to my brother, an analyst at the GAO) 
is discretionary so if Federal spending is what drives the economy to 
the great heights we experienced through the 80's then why isn't the
economy booming even more today?  We are spending more now than then and
it just isn't happening.

The reduction in taxes on the wealthy allowed the more efficient use of
their funds than any government program could dream of.  As Lincoln himself
stated, "You cannot help the wage earner by bringing down the wage payer".
This is the fundamental mechanical flaw in the liberal approach, they 
have no idea where wealth comes from but they know it when they see it!

Yours Truly,

Mike Best
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh