From: paul@hsh.com
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Re: DEBT PER CAPITA (was Hillary Clinton....President ?)
Date: 19 Nov 92 14:27:30 GMT
Organization: HSH Associates

In article <1ee8efINN8e6@agate.berkeley.edu>, lazarus@ocf.berkeley.edu (Andrew
J. Lazarus) writes: 
> In article <2B029523.207@deneva.sdd.trw.com> helding@pooh.sdd.trw.com (Steve
Helding) writes: 
>>pcorless@cisco.com (Peter Corless) writes:
> 
>>On a related note, I've often wondered how much the increase in spending can
>>attributed to the executive branch as opposed to Congress.  

*sigh* ALL spending is mandated by Congress; read your grade-school textbook.

>>Personally, I believe a good deal of the national
>>debt can be attributed to the tremendous tax cuts instituted during the
>>Reagan administration along with the hugh defense outlays.  But then, doesn't
>>Congress share in this responsibility?
> 
> Yes. I have posted many times the statistic that Federal Funds receipts
> (this excludes Soc Sec, Medica*, and other trust funds) fell
> precipitously frm the Reagan Tax Cut. Adjusting for inflation, Federal
> Funds Receipts did not return to their 1981 level until 1986! 1984
> incometax receipts were below 1982 in current (a fortiori constant)
> dollars.
> The net Reaganistas like to confuse the issue by posting revenue figures
> which include Social Security (taxes for which went UP) with Federal
> Funds.

There's no confusion.  It's intellectually dishonest to EXclude Soc Sec,
Medica*, and other trust funds, since -- as we all know -- most of that is
p*ssed away on day-to-day operating expenses, just as Congress legislated. 
(Again: the President doesn't spend any money; Congress does.) 

> Sure Congress bears some responsibility: especially the REPUBLICAN
> Senate (1980-1986, net Reaganistas claim falsely that it was only two
> years) 

So, according to your history, the Democrats are completely innocent, despite 
having controlled Congress almost continuously since before you were born?
Never mind, let it pass.  How far some will go to rewrite history!  As for your
assertion that the other party controlled the Senate for four additional years,
please post your source. 

> Of course, even then Congress's budget often
> had a smaller deficit than the budget plan submitted by the President.

Irrelevant, since it's Congress' budget -- not the President's -- that is 
implemented.  This should have been taught to you at about the fourth-grade 
level.  And, as has been pointed out before, the "official" budget does not
include the traditional "appropriations" bills that are passed after the budget
deal is done.  If there even IS a budget: for the fiscal years 1985, 1986,
1987, and 1988, there WAS no budget, only one huge "continuing resolutions"
that were tossed at Reagan on a pass-it-or-shut-down-the-gov't basis.

> However, most of the blame goes to the architects of the plan: President
> Ronald Senile Reagan and his administration.

Have a care, Andy:  your historical revisionism is coming back to bite you.  
Pretend, if you like, that the Congress (Democratic or otherwise) sits idly by
while the President creates, passes, and implements the budget single-handedly.
Pretend for four years, if you want.  But know this:  the new "architect" is
only now admitting that he won't be able to keep his campaign promises; even
now, he's about to scrap middle-class tax cuts (he will probably, in fact, be
'forced' to increase taxes on us), and he will have to cut the sacred
entitlement spending.  Read today's (11/19) Wall Street Journal, page one. 
Read it and weep, because you'll have to revise history again if you want to
make Clinton out to be the innocent party. 

------

 Paul Havemann, VP          HSH Associates            (201) 838-3330 
 Internet: paul@hsh.com     Compuserve: 70410,3507    AOL: HSH Assoc
 "Any opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the company."
  
"He walks again by night!  Out of the fog, into the smog -- doggedly...
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Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,alt.president.clinton,talk.politics.misc