Ronald Reagan

[smc]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

If they were not socialists then what were they?

This date in history is part of the origin of "social democracy" (about which you have written on this site). To explain more would be to take the thread far from its subject, Ronald Reagan, so I'll give you an assignment to figure it out. If you run into difficulty, my friend, you know where to find me.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by smc

This date in history is part of the origin of "social democracy" (about which you have written on this site). To explain more would be to take the thread far from its subject, Ronald Reagan, so I'll give you an assignment to figure it out. If you run into difficulty, my friend, you know where to find me.

I will try, Mentor.

[smc]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

I will try, Mentor.

Mentor, eh?

Like David, Cal, and Jay in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin"?
"You plant the seed … then you wait for the seed to grow into a plant, and then you fuck the plant."

Or Mister Miyagi in "The Karate Kid"?
"We make sacred pact. I promise teach ... you, you promise learn. I say, you do, no questions."

Or Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Star Wars"?
"Use the force, Enoch."

Or Yoda in "Star Wars"?
"Adventure. Excitement. Capitalism. A Jedi craves not these things."

Or just complete the damn assignment and be sure to turn it in when it's due!

[Enoch Root]

You've seen the 40-year-old virgin? You surprise me every day.

I am Telemachus. You are Mentor. I can't believe I had to look up this shit. All this time I had my Greek mythology confused and thought Mentor was the centaur that trained Achilles (assuming I'm getting that right...).

[randolph]

Stage 2. Crushing debts from domestic excesses, war mongering

Stockman says "the second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40% of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970." Who's to blame? Not big-spending Dems, says Stockman, but "from the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts."
Back "in 1981, traditional Republicans supported tax cuts," but Stockman makes clear, they had to be "matched by spending cuts, to offset the way inflation was pushing many taxpayers into higher brackets and to spur investment. The Reagan administration's hastily prepared fiscal blueprint, however, was no match for the primordial forces -- the welfare state and the warfare state -- that drive the federal spending machine."
OK, stop a minute. As you absorb Stockman's indictment of how his Republican party has "destroyed the U.S. economy," you're probably asking yourself why anyone should believe a traitor to the Reagan legacy. I believe party affiliation is irrelevant here. This is a crucial subject that must be explored because it further exposes a dangerous historical trend where politics is so partisan it's having huge negative consequences.
Yes, the GOP does have a welfare-warfare state: Stockman says "the neocons were pushing the military budget skyward. And the Republicans on Capitol Hill who were supposed to cut spending, exempted from the knife most of the domestic budget -- entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects. But in the end it was a new cadre of ideological tax-cutters who killed the Republicans' fiscal religion."
When Fed chief Paul Volcker "crushed inflation" in the '80s we got a "solid economic rebound." But then "the new tax-cutters not only claimed victory for their supply-side strategy but hooked Republicans for good on the delusion that the economy will outgrow the deficit if plied with enough tax cuts." By 2009, they "reduced federal revenues to 15% of gross domestic product," lowest since the 1940s. Still today they're irrationally demanding an extension of those "unaffordable Bush tax cuts [that] would amount to a bankruptcy filing."
Recently Bush made matters far worse by "rarely vetoing a budget bill and engaging in two unfinanced foreign military adventures." Bush also gave in "on domestic spending cuts, signing into law $420 billion in nondefense appropriations, a 65% percent gain from the $260 billion he had inherited eight years earlier. Republicans thus joined the Democrats in a shameless embrace of a free-lunch fiscal policy." Takes two to tango.



Tracy should red this.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by randolph

Stage 2. Crushing debts from domestic excesses, war mongering

Stockman says "the second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40% of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970." Who's to blame? Not big-spending Dems, says Stockman, but "from the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts."
Back "in 1981, traditional Republicans supported tax cuts," but Stockman makes clear, they had to be "matched by spending cuts, to offset the way inflation was pushing many taxpayers into higher brackets and to spur investment. The Reagan administration's hastily prepared fiscal blueprint, however, was no match for the primordial forces -- the welfare state and the warfare state -- that drive the federal spending machine."
OK, stop a minute. As you absorb Stockman's indictment of how his Republican party has "destroyed the U.S. economy," you're probably asking yourself why anyone should believe a traitor to the Reagan legacy. I believe party affiliation is irrelevant here. This is a crucial subject that must be explored because it further exposes a dangerous historical trend where politics is so partisan it's having huge negative consequences.
Yes, the GOP does have a welfare-warfare state: Stockman says "the neocons were pushing the military budget skyward. And the Republicans on Capitol Hill who were supposed to cut spending, exempted from the knife most of the domestic budget -- entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects. But in the end it was a new cadre of ideological tax-cutters who killed the Republicans' fiscal religion."
When Fed chief Paul Volcker "crushed inflation" in the '80s we got a "solid economic rebound." But then "the new tax-cutters not only claimed victory for their supply-side strategy but hooked Republicans for good on the delusion that the economy will outgrow the deficit if plied with enough tax cuts." By 2009, they "reduced federal revenues to 15% of gross domestic product," lowest since the 1940s. Still today they're irrationally demanding an extension of those "unaffordable Bush tax cuts [that] would amount to a bankruptcy filing."
Recently Bush made matters far worse by "rarely vetoing a budget bill and engaging in two unfinanced foreign military adventures." Bush also gave in "on domestic spending cuts, signing into law $420 billion in nondefense appropriations, a 65% percent gain from the $260 billion he had inherited eight years earlier. Republicans thus joined the Democrats in a shameless embrace of a free-lunch fiscal policy." Takes two to tango.



Tracy should red this.

Considering she does not believe Bush is responsible in great part for the current economic woes, yes, yes she does.

[smc]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

You've seen the 40-year-old virgin? You surprise me every day.

I am Telemachus. You are Mentor. I can't believe I had to look up this shit. All this time I had my Greek mythology confused and thought Mentor was the centaur that trained Achilles (assuming I'm getting that right...).

Why wouldn't I have seen the film? I enjoy a good comedy.

Telemachus, eh? How's mom holding up?

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by smc

Why wouldn't I have seen the film? I enjoy a good comedy.

Telemachus, eh? How's mom holding up?

The suitors are beginning to get...friendly with her and I think she likes it.

Oh, look, here comes Tiresias...

By the way, The Age of Reason should be required reading in junior high.

[randolph]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

The suitors are beginning to get...friendly with her and I think she likes it.

Oh, look, here comes Tiresias with her...

Just wonderen what this has to do with Ronny?