Read "Tear Down This Myth" and then get back to me. The ideas that Reagan was a good President and that he was overwhelmingly popular and that he ended the Cold War and brought economic prosperity ... all of these things are nothing but myths. Facts are stubborn things. Or stupid things as Ronny said. What's really interesting is the campaign promises that Reagan failed to deliver on but that Bill Clinton successfully delivered during his Presidency. These are the two best examples: 1. Smaller government. Reagan increased the size of government, Clinton decreased it. 2. Balanced budget. Reagan increased the deficit to unprecedented levels, Clinton finished his Presidency with a surplus. --- It's also important to realize that Reagan didn't have a Dubya-esque foreign policy at all. In fact if Reagan had been a 2008 GOP nominee he would have been lambasted as a anti-American liberal in the GOP primaries! Reagan talked to his enemies. And he more than talked to terrorists. He traded weapons with them! It's just absolutely mind boggling the way the current incarnation of the Republican party tries to use the Reagan myth to their advantage. When you really look at the facts, they are totally off base. --- Did you know that Reagan raised taxes on many occasions during his Presidency? Did you know that the economy got worse, not better, after his initial tax cut? --- "Voodoo economics" simply does not work. That's been shown time and time again. ***** Riiiiiiiight. No. I love it when conservatives talk about how social security didn't work. It has been working for many many years. It's like some of you folks can only think in terms of economics. There is more to life than the GDP of a nation. It's just hard to talk reasonably with people who only care about economics. I care about people. It's only an American conservative that could look at our current health care system, for example, and act like there's nothing wrong with it. 50 million people with no health insurance coverage. Overall standards of health well below that of other nations. Socialized health care works far better than our for profit system. Right now health insurance companies routinely take coverage away from suffering people to make more money. The first thing a health insurance company does when they are notified that one of their policy holders needs coverage is to try to figure out some way they don't have to pay up. I recently visited London and it's great how over there people are so proud of their health care system. Here we have nothing to be proud of. Folks like myp will say that someone will make less money with a government system thus it "doesn't work" - I will say more people will get quality health care coverage thus it does work. We just work on different metrics. You work on the metric of money over all else. "Greed Is Good." No. It's not. Greed is bad. Health is good. I will admit this is a rambling post. I am in a hurry. But my major point above all else is that there's more to life than money. I highly recommend all conservatives read the book "Deep Economy" with an open mind.
George Bush signed the balanced budget agreement in fiscal year 1990 that Clinton takes credit for. Clinton also had the benefit of a Republican Congress after the 1994 Republican backlash against Hillary Care. President Reagan also struck back against America enemies. Grenada - October 25, 1983 US rescues American medical students at St. George's University on Grenada. In March 1983, Ronald Reagan began issuing warnings about the threat posed to the United States by the "Soviet-Cuban militarization" as evidenced by the runway being built. Pointing to the 9,000-foot (2,700 m) runway and the oil storage tanks, he asserted that these were unnecessary for commercial flights, and that it meant that the airport was to become a Cuban-Soviet airbase.[ Tripoli - April 14, 1986 Because of Libyan sponsorship of a terrorist attack in Berlin in which one American soldier was killed, President Reagan ordered the bombing of Qadaffi’s home and offices in Tripoli. President Reagan said: “Today we did what we had to do. If necessary, we will do it again.†United States offered to provide protection for tankers flying the U.S. flag in Persian Gulf- March 7, 1987. During the Operation Nimble Archer in October 1987, the U.S. attacked Iranian oil platforms in retaliation for an Iranian attack on the U.S.-flagged Kuwaiti tanker Sea Isle City.[
The source of the mortgage crisis http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=11740473&postcount=716
Reagan became President in 1981. Over the last 28 years the gap between the rich and the poor has widened to pre-Great Depression levels because of the deregulation and "greed is good" mentality of the Reagan admin. We have to realize that greed is not good and that trickle down economics simply does not work. We have to realize that there are more important things than the growth of GDP. We need to be looking at how many people have health care and what is the quality of that health care. We need to be looking at how many people are making a "living wage." We need to be thinking about what we are doing to the environment because we have just one. We need to be thinking about life quality instead of just the very short term thinking of how much money are rich people making. And during the Reagan admin - while the rich were getting richer - everyone else was getting poorer.
What we need is an economy where everyone is equal. We could each work according to our ability and earn according to our need. Mr. Obama may have proven to be a bit right wing on some of his foreign policy initiatives, but I feel confident he will work to make my words above a reality.
"Spread the wealth" - Barry Obama 2008 Over the last 28 years over 30 million illegal immigrants have come to the US. The illegal immigration drives down inner city wages. Many illegal aliens can't afford to live on the wages that they earn and make ends meet with welfare. Illegal Immigration could end up costing taxpayers trillions of dollars. The influx of illegal immigrants has effectively "imported about 10 million high school dropouts into the United States," said Robert Rector, a senior research fellow in welfare and family issues for the Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The National Academy of Sciences estimated that each immigrant will result in a $100,000 net annual cost to taxpayers. http://www.10news.com/news/9620142/detail.html
Zibblu- no one is saying it hasn't worked so far, what we are saying is it is not going to continue working. Do you have a problem with looking into the future and predicting things based on facts? The program is set to run out of money. What are you going to do when those checks stop rolling in? Also, you seem to have a lack of faith in people. Without a socialized system, people would be able to keep that income tax money and save it for themselves. They would end up with more money because of the lack of bureaucracy. These are FACTS. Also, the taxes create deadweight losses in the markets, which reduces total surplus for BOTH consumers and producers. Please stop putting words in our mouths. The majority of people in the United States, conservative or not, think our current system is not efficient and does not work. What you need to realize is that the healthcare market is burdened with tons of regulations and it is currently one of the most regulated markets in the States. It is far from a free market. Also, the reason that insurance companies have so much power is because GOVERNMENT POLICY is currently favoring them. In a true free market situation, costs would be a lot lower, people would have more money, and efficient would be higher due to less deadweight loss and a more flexible market. Again- look at the future. Look at their balance sheets and you will see that their tax revenue, even with the level at where their taxes are, is not going to be enough to cover their costs. Also, look at their wait times, especially for surgeries in comparison to the States or other freer nations. Without the bureaucracy that the government has created here, costs would be lower and our wait times would be even less. Again, stop putting words in my mouth. Markets have been proven to be self-correcting if left alone. The government only distorts them when they interfere and thus destroys that self-correcting ability. Do you not believe in the price mechanism and supply/demand? There is more to life to money- no one is arguing against that. We simply have different beliefs on how to achieve prosperity. Sadly, history has proven you wrong over and over again, yet you refuse to think that what you support has been done before, when it reality it has. Free markets are what allowed the United States to go from nothing to an economic superpower in less than 2 centuries and it is what allows us to retain the freedoms we hold today. With every move of big government and socialism the people lose freedoms and markets get distorted.