Barack Obama

[randolph]

Finally a wised up Republican, Arlen Specter

from Yahoo News
Deep red. But keeping the government in deficit is exactly what Reagan did. Despite his years of lip service to balancing the budget, total discretionary spending had climbed almost 16 percent by the time he left office, dwarfing the Carter budgets he had once criticized. Revenues, limited by Reagan's tax cuts, were never able to keep pace. The result was a spiraling national debt that nearly tripled during his two terms, hitting $2.7 trillion.

Some of Reagan's aides, including William Niskanen, the former chairman of Reagan's council of economic advisers, believe there is a simple explanation for these growing deficits: Reagan's tax cuts simply did not do what supply-side economists said they would do. Because the cuts didn't substantively increase tax revenues, they didn't allow Reagan to shrink the deficit. They also didn't decrease the size of government by choking off spending. "The 'starving the beast' hypothesis is understandably popular among politicians--that you can have tax cuts without a deficit increase--but it's just empirically wrong," says Niskanen, now chairman emeritus of the Cato Institute. "That idea has destroyed for several decades the traditional Republican commitment to fiscal responsibility."

This, many historians believe, may be Reagan's real legacy. "The combination of military spending, tax cuts, and ultimately a failure to control most domestic spending led to a fiscal straitjacket by the end of the decade," says Zelizer. In 1991, Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush, was forced to increase taxes to close huge gaps in the budget, but government debt still climbed past $4 trillion on his watch. When George W. Bush adopted a Reaganesque economic policy, with Dick Cheney, early in his first term, famously saying that "Reagan proved deficits don't matter," more tax cuts and more spending led to even more debt. By the time Obama took office, the federal government was more than $11 trillion in the red.

The lesson of Reaganomics, in other words, may be a simple one. In times of economic crisis, all roads seem to lead to the same place: deficits. The real test of a president and his economic policy, historians say, is what happens to those deficits when the economy recovers. For all of his many successes--and for all the support his ideas still enjoy on Capitol Hill--that is a test Reagan seems to have failed.

[Vanillas]

The Republican Party is fast marginalizing itself into oblivion. Unless they begin to broaden their base -and fast- they will go the way of the Federalists and the Whigs. And, despite the fact that my personal politics are left of center, I do NOT wish for this. American politics are dialectical and work best when the opposing parties are competitive. If I was a Republican I would want Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber to take a house by the sea together. Rush Limbaugh I would encourage to take an early retirement and a vow of silence. Then I would encourage the moderates (and there actually are some) to begin finding their voice, a voice that acknowledges both Science and the fact that Ronald Reagan does NOT belong on Mt. Rushmore. They are in the desert now largely because for eight years they blindly followed the bidding of a near idiot. But they don't have to stay there.

[randolph]

Originally Posted by Vanillas

The Republican Party is fast marginalizing itself into oblivion. Unless they begin to broaden their base -and fast- they will go the way of the Federalists and the Whigs. And, despite the fact that my personal politics are left of center, I do NOT wish for this. American politics are dialectical and work best when the opposing parties are competitive. If I was a Republican I would want Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber to take a house by the sea together. Rush Limbaugh I would encourage to take an early retirement and a vow of silence. Then I would encourage the moderates (and there actually are some) to begin finding their voice, a voice that acknowledges both Science and the fact that Ronald Reagan does NOT belong on Mt. Rushmore. They are in the desert now largely because for eight years they blindly followed the bidding of a near idiot. But they don't have to stay there.

I agree, a viable two party system is essential for our democratic system. The Republicans from Regan on have tried to destroy the two party system (aka Carl Rove). Compromise and reconciliation kept this country going since its inception. If the GOP can't free itself from Limbaugh (et all) then another party needs to be created to replace it. The Grand Old Party has become a white elephant. How about the LBR party (lets be reasonable).