America is in massive debt and entity after entity are going bankrupt: the post office lost 2.2 billion dollars in the 2nd quarter of 2011 and might need a bailout; Social Security and Medicare will be out of money by 2036 " If you're 54 or older and plan to live the average American life expectancy of 77.9 years, then you're in good shape. But if you're planning to live past the year 2036, don't count on Social Security. And if you're relying on Medicare, don't even think about the math."; "legendary investor Jim Rogers thinks U.S. bonds will be worthless,
I will be shorting US bonds, Rogers told a conference in Edinburgh. 'I would probably be doing it today if I weren't here,' he said. Bonds in the US have been in a bull market for 30 years, Rogers said. In my view that's coming to an end...the bond bull market is coming to an end. If any of you have bonds I would urge you to go home and sell them. If any of you are bond portfolio managers I would get another job,' he said. Addressing one bond portfolio manager among conference delegates, Rogers said: If I were you I would think about becoming a farmer. You buy land and learn how to farm. In my view it’s going to be a spectacular way to make money,' he said, adding: This is where the great fortunes are going to be made in the future.[...] Longer term the US dollar is going to be a total disaster, Rogers said, urging investors to think about getting out of US dollars before it’s too late.over in the EU Portugal has requested a bailout and Greece has not been living up to the terms of its bailout that demanded that Greece make tough budget cuts; it looks like the GOP will not be making big cuts to the 2012 budget. This little bit of economic news is just the tip of the iceberg. The world is broke and bankrupt and facing an imminent economic crisis. So does America need another Ronald Regan or Republican President? According to this view of history the answer is no.
"Why American History Is Not What They Say: An Introduction To Revisionism" is a short book from the Mises Institute. Starting on page 177 is a brief overview of Ronald Reagan. It paints a rather different picture of the standard on that portrays him as an advocate of limited government,
Like most Republican politicians since the early 1930s, Reagan always portrayed himself throughout his political career as a champion of limited government, individual rights, and free enterprise—the classical liberal values which, of course, he absurdly described as 'conservative.' But, like almost all Republican politicians since the early 1930s, he seemed to forget all about these values once he got into office and assumed the reins of power. Consider, as a case in point, Reagan’s eight years (1966-The whole section is about seven pages. I know it was the democrats that was the reason for the increase in the national deficit during Reagan's Presidency, but I don't have any good arguments against the points made against Reagan by this short book. But the fact is that Republicans are just as bad when it comes to increasing the size of government and the national debt: look at Hoover, Nixon, Reagan, Bush 43. And it was Bush 41 who started talking about this new world order.
1974) as governor of California. As Murray Rothbard noted in 1980, 'Despite his bravado about having stopped the growth of state government, the actual story is that the California budget grew by 122 percent during his eight years as governor, not much of an improvement on the growth rate of 130 percent during the preceding two terms of free-spending liberal Pat Brown. The state bureaucracy increased during Reagan’s administration from 158,000 to 192,000, a rise of nearly 22 percent—hardly squaring with Reagan’s boast of having “stopped the bureaucracy cold.'[...]According to Rothbard, Reagan 'created seventy-three new state government councils and commissions, with a total budget, in his last year alone, of $12 million. Included was the California Energy Commission, which put the state hip-deep into the energy business' and created a regulatory climate under which a three-year review process was required before any new power plant could be constructed in the state.[...] As James Ostrowski noted in 2002, 'Over the last one hundred years, of the five presidents who presided over the largest domestic spending increases, four were Republicans. Include regulations and foreign policy, as well as budgets approved by a Republican Congress, and a picture begins to emerge of the Republican Party as a reliable engine of government growth.'
The point of the post is that the world is bankrupt and this massive global economic ponzi scheme is about to end and no Republican President or Congress is able or willing to stop the of massive tsunami of debt that is about to hit the world. Given the history of the leadership of Republican Presidents, America doesn't need one at the crucial time.
We need a tea party republican. I don't think your statistics include any of them.
ReplyDeleteYes, Jeff, I think this is a bit of a misdirection. You've got to cut Reagan some slack when he was in California: the state was exploding with population growth in the '60's. Even minimal government was bound to explode. But, it's true that he didn't control it like we would like to think he did. Same with his term as president. What he did was CUT TAXES, which spurred economic development, which generated MORE tax revenues which enabled the government, after initially going deeper in debt, to control its finances.
ReplyDeleteAnd you can't slam George W Bush for not trying: he made a major effort to reform Social Security, but spineless Congressional Republicans and thoroughly uncooperative Congressional Democrats(and they're media allies) stopped him in his tracks.
Clinton's finances looked good because the Republican revolution of '94 forced responsibility on him. We EXPECT that now. And if we get a Paul Ryan or someone like Chris Christie as president, along with a Republican Congress, we will get results.
I think the book stated that Reagan actually raised taxes in California, "Nor “is Reagan’s record on taxes any comfort. He started off with a bang by increasing state taxes nearly $1 billion in his first year in office— the biggest tax increase in California history. Income, sales, corporate, bank, liquor, and cigarette taxes were all boosted dramatically.” After his re-election as governor in 1970, “[t]wo more tax hikes—in 1971 and 1972—raised revenues by another $500 million and $700 million respectively.” Overall, “[b]y the end of Reagan’s eight years, state income taxes
ReplyDeletehad nearly tripled, from a bite of $7.68 per $1000 of personal income to $19.48. During his administration, California rose in a ranking of the states from twentieth to thirteenth in personal income tax collection per capita, and it rose from fourth to first in per capita revenue from corporate income taxes.” Pg167
And "As for deficits, Slate’s Timothy Noah puts the matter succinctly: “The deficit, which stood at $74 billion in Carter’s final year, ballooned to $155 billion in Reagan’s final year. In the words of Vice President Dick Cheney, ‘Reagan taught us deficits don’t matter.’” P169
Bush tried to reform entiltments, but the government grew by leaps and bounds under his Presidency. He was the one that "abandoned the free market to save it".
From what I know of history and the more I read about it, it seems like the Republicans have expaned the government just as much if not more than Democrats. It doesn't really matter why or if they were the ones at fault, it still happened. I don't think a Chris Chrisite or anyone like him will get elected and even if they did they would realize how impotent they are to do anything about the deficits or looming debt crisis. Rand Paul-like reform will mean a depression and lost of social cohesion.
"“The deficit, which stood at $74 billion in Carter’s final year, ballooned to $155 billion in Reagan’s final year. In the words of Vice President Dick Cheney, ‘Reagan taught us deficits don’t matter.’” P169"
ReplyDeleteYes, but the economy grew even more, so that debt as a percentage of GDP was smaller. He changed the way people looked at the government/business interrelationship.
We all have learned here that Reagan didn't cut government, so we grant your point there. However, he enacted pro-growth, pro-business policies that made capitalism work in the US and made everyone's standard of living rise. I agree, he wasn't a Tea Partier, but for the time, he was a fiscal conservative. This shows either a) How far conservatism has advanced, or b)how dire our situation is or c)both.
What Reagan did (along with and more significantly, Thatcher in the UK) was a revolution. We need one now, and a leader for our times now, not a carbon copy of a person of another time. This is an error people make taking someone exactly as they were and putting them in the present. It doesn't make sense. Sort of like saying "well if we took hard-living, poor trainign Babe Ruth and put him in the 2011 Major Leagues he wouldn't be the best ever like he was", well true, but Babe Ruth now wouldn't be that way. There's no point in comparing.
Just think what Congress has just done, we say the amount they cut the budget was tiny. We all agree that it was way smaller than we needed. But the fact that they actually cut the budget instead of growing it, for the first time since who knows when (post WWII?), and this with only half of one part of the government in Republican hands, shows that a revolution is happening. I admit that it may not be enough of a revolution to matter. We'll see. The American people may be too dependent on government redistribution of wealth to be able to carry it through.
I agree that we need a president that is not an exact image of a past president. But I do think certain values and principles transcend time. And I see your point about the debt being a smaller percentage of the total economy. But if I am reading this chart correctly--the one at the top and on the right hand side-- on wikipedia, it looks like the debt around 1989 was a larger percentage of the total economy than around 1979 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt
ReplyDelete"During his administration, California rose in a ranking of the states from twentieth to thirteenth in personal income tax collection per capita, and it rose from fourth to first in per capita revenue from corporate income taxes.” Pg167 I can see that this could be due to the fact that a more productive economy leads to higher tax revenues.
I think that cutting any amount and the fact that there is talk of cutting budgets are good signs, but cutting only 323 million dollars when you pledge to cut 100 billion is not going to solve the debt crisis. And the original 100 billion is insignificant anyways.
I don't think we need just any revolution, but a certain one.
I like a lot of Reagan said, but it seems like the image that Republicans are for small government is not an accurate one.
http://www.presidentialdebt.org/
ReplyDeleteThis chart seems to confirm that the debt as a percentage of the GDP grew under Reagan far more than under Carter. It seems that it grew every year under his Presidency. I could be reading it wrong.
"I could be reading it wrong." Or I could be :) You win that point, but again, in my opinion, that doesn't argue against the gist of what I am saying.
ReplyDeleteI think that a lot of the deficits were due to the democrat controlled congress at that time. But if a Reagan can't cut the size of government, but instead increases it then I think that it is near impossible to make the massive cuts necessary for our time.
ReplyDeleteMy whole view of conservativism and Republicans is evolving and I don't think they are the advocates for small, limited government that we would like to think.
Of course the growth in government and the politicans that make it possible are a function of our society. Without a major change in the culture of out people, we will not continue much longer to live in a free society. Culture is the battle ground where the war between freedom and tyranny is taking place. Unless those on the side of freedom realize this, we will contiue to loose to those that advocate the opposite system of what we would like. Communist and socialist have realized that this is where the battle is to be fought and they have been fighting it for the past 70 years or so by infliterating our culture.