Waiting for Reagan

Sorry, there are no Reagans among the candidates this year. There aren't even any Nixons.

They range from average to pathetic. As said many times before, Giuliani or Romney will never get my vote, and probably will not get the nomination. Paul and Thompson are not going to get the nomination. That leaves McCain and Huckabee, average at best.

Maybe I am wrong, but the best thing that could happen is for a deadlock at the convention, and an unannounced candidate come in and transform the election. Someone who can inspire and lead.

 

I'm glad there are no Reagans running this time; one Reagan was quite enough!

 

Our national debt couldn't take another Reagan.

 

Reagan was a great President. One thing we need to remember is that he was a prochoice politician and converted a short time before he ran for President. It was a true conversion and he did good things for the unborn. Remember that when people start saying that Romney used to be prochoice and therefore, couldn't be prolife now even though he says he is. I believe him and have no reason to doubt him. Ann Coulter said the following:

"Liberals claim to be enraged at Romney for being a "flip-flopper." I've looked and looked, and the only issue I can find that Romney has "flipped" on is abortion. When running for office in Massachusetts -- or, for short, "the Soviet Union" -- Romney said that Massachusetts was a pro-choice state and that he would not seek to change laws on abortion.

Romney's first race was against Sen. Teddy Kennedy -- whom he came closer to beating than any Republican ever had. If Romney needed to quote "The Communist Manifesto" to take out that corpulent drunk, all men of good will would owe him a debt of gratitude.

Even when Romney was claiming to support Roe v. Wade, he won the endorsement of Massachusetts Citizens for Life -- a group I trust more than the editorial board of The New York Times. Romney's Democratic opponents always won the endorsements of the very same pro-choice groups now attacking him as a "flip-flopper."

After his term as governor, NARAL Pro-Choice America assailed Romney, saying: "(A)s governor he initially expressed pro-choice beliefs but had a generally anti-choice record. His position on choice has changed. His position is now anti-choice."

Pro-abortion groups like the Republican Majority for Choice -- the evil doppelganger to my own group, Democratic Majority for Life -- are now running videos attacking Romney for "flip-flopping" on abortion.

Of all the Republican candidates for president, Romney and Rudy Giuliani are the only ones who had to be elected in pro-choice districts. Romney governed as a pro-lifer and has been viciously attacked by pro-abortion groups.

By contrast, Giuliani cleverly avoids the heinous "flip-flopper" label by continuing to embrace baby-killing. (Rudy flip-flops only on trivial matters like illegal immigration and his own marital vows.)

And, of course, Romney is a Mormon. Even a loser Mormon like Sen. Harry Reid claims to be pro-life. So having a candidate with a wacky religion isn't all bad.

At worst, Romney will turn out to be a moderate Republican -- a high-IQ, articulate, moral, wildly successful, moderate Republican. Of the top five Republican candidates for president, Romney is the only one who hasn't dumped his first wife (as well as the second, in the case of Giuliani) -- except Huckabee. And unlike Huckabee, Romney doesn't have a son who hanged a dog at summer camp. So there won't be any intern issues and there won't be any Billy Carter issues." Article at http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/article.cgi?article=230

 

http://jgrubbs.blogspot.com/2008/01/two-rons.html

 

I personally could not care whether or not you liked Ronald Reagan as President. His policies were and are debatable, as are any President's (or any others, for that matter). That is irrelevant to my response.

However, with all respect, please get your facts straight, here, when talking about the national debt. The GNP (and tax revenues) approximately doubled (~100% increase) during the 8 years Ronald Reagan was President. The rate of inflation went up slightly less than 2/3 (~64%) during the same time. That should have given us roughly a one-third cushion, here. It did not. As the former senator of TN, James Sasser, might have said, "The 'daffacit' increased." He would have been right, for it did exactly that. Why?

Because the Congress managed to spend ~$1.22 for every dollar it took in during that eight year period. So instead of gaining, as we should have, on the national debt, we actually became about ~25% worse off, in this regard.

By no stretch was the problem that of 'government income'; the problem was entirely that of 'government outgo'!

"Reaganomics" worked, over that period. In fact, one could argue it worked too well. For the House of Representatives during that time, where all revenue legislation (both for income and spending) must originate, did the one thing they do best, overall. Spend money! Every budget that was passed was far above anything the President asked for, especially in the domestic arena. (Can anyone say "pork"?) If necessary, I will remind you that the Democrats controlled the House, through the entire Reagan Presidency, and by a fairly substantial majority. Wanna' guess which party got their way, here?

FTR, any fiscal problems or advantages any President has, monetarily, are not usually, primarily either his fault or to his credit.

While it was not his fault, by any means, President Nixon was the recipient of the large economic fallout from the Vitenam War era. The intent, however well-intentioned that it may or may not have been, of President Nixon, to impose wage and price controls before and during the "Arab Oil Embargo" to reign in inflation, had the exact opposite effect, after they were lifted, as the free-market first corrected, over-corrected, and corrected itself again. In fact, the first 'correction' actually 'started' when some of them were still in place, during 1973 and 1974, jumping when they were actually finally lifted in the early part of 1974, leading to a downturn (re-correction) during the Ford Presidency, and re-recorrecting itself again (under the conditions under which it was forced to operate), like a pendulum, during the latter part of the Carter Presidency which led to the "stagflation" of the late 1970's. President Ford and Carter, during their Presidencies, suffered the effects of these ill-advised attempts to manipulate and control the economy, but most of it was none of their fault, whatsoever. Presidents George Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush are all in much of the same boat, here, as to their benefits and shortcomings. (Clearly, President George W. Bush, as did Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Ruchard Nixon, suffers from the expenditures associated with fighting a lengthy major war. However, whether or not this war or other wars are or are not 'proper' and 'justified' is incidental to this thread, even though all were and are fully debatable in another.)

It roughly takes from 7-10 years for the effects of major economic moves to be fully manifested, if not longer.

No one President simply can turn around (for good or bad) a behemoth global economy on their own, or do it very quickly, even in the United States. The current "US economy" is a multi-trillion dollar giant (pushing 15 Trillion $), and over a fourth of the entire world economy, and over three times that of any other nation on earth. It don't change overnight, or even in a few weeks or months!

Ed

 

The topic of Reagan is even more touchy than I thought for some people. I withdraw my malicious and unfounded charges!

 

No one in the race now could touch the hem of Reagan's garment. Paul spent a lot of energy criticizing Reagan. Rudy distanced himself from him despite Reagan's appointment of him. Is Obama the only one who likes Reagan :smilewinkgrin:

 

I am sure I am at least one of those being referred to here, albeit subtly. I am not offended by this, nor am I particularly surprised, considering I even misread my own post in the first sentence. The opening sentences should have read along these lines as follows. It is my fault for not proof-reading this more thoroughly.

"I personally could not care whether or not you liked or did not like Ronald Reagan as President." I inadvertently left this part out, that I highlighted.

For the personality and the politics of Ronald Reagan were never my argument, at all.

The issue was and is the economics. And that is what I was trying to get across.

FTR, I do not hold Ronald Reagan to be a great 'political superstar', and he is not the best President of my lifetime, IMO. I will also assure you that neither is the current holder of the office the best president, but be that as it may, it is also true that whoever succeeds President Bush and probably even the second successor to the current President will suffer from the long term economic effects of the last at least seven years, with the wars, for the next decade and probably longer than that, IMO. That is just economic reality.

It took over two decades for the United States to basically completely economically overcome the Civil War. It took some seven years to overcome WWI, and the resultant recovery was followed by a bust when the recovery bubble collapsed in 1929, leading to almost another decade before that was overcome. WWII took almost a decade to overcome, completely. Then Korea which took another 5 years. Vietnam took nearly a decade to get beyond, economically. And as I said before, President Carter paid the price for the economic follies of the Nixon era, which was an attempt to politically overcome the economic realities of the Vietnam era. That's just the way it is.

Ed

 

And Nixon was worse.