Reagan's Top Economist Says GOP Misled the U.S. and Tanked the Economy

Reagan toastLost in the 24/7 news cycle has been a July 31, 2010 opinion-editorial by David Stockman, former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. Stockman was closely tied to the development of the Reaganomics ideology, but now he points to massive failures by Republicans, while they were in power, to assure that financial accounts were balanced in government, international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the affairs of private businesses and households. Stockman excoriates modern Republicans, and particularly Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, for claiming the party's current economic doctrines are rooted in traditional GOP financial philosophy. He points to a list of misguided Republican actions that have led the country to economic disaster: the runaway growth of public debt resulting "not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party's embrace ... of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts," the neocon's sky-high inflation of the military budget, the "warfare state," the removal of traditional restrictions on leverage and speculation by the financial sector which led to a "vast, unproductive expansion of our financial sector," and the steady sending of jobs and production offshore. Stockman charges that Republicans have strayed so far from their ideological roots that they have "made a mockery of party ideals" and led the country into adopting policies that crippled the economy.

Comments

"Conservatives have always hated college" "more education means = democratic voting tendency"

How can this even make sense to you? How many Republicans sitting in office right now AREN'T college educated? Almost every one of them has more degrees than you or I ever will.

that they didn't like to be educated themselves. They just don't want an educated populace.

Logical fallacy; 'Liberals are educated' does not mean 'educated are liberals'.

A degree doesn't make one educated, and can anyone tell us how many of those office holders got their seats in university through the legacy of their rich fathers and grandfathers? Maybe all they learned was how to manipulate their government positions to make themselves and their friends rich as fuck at the expense of the common people.

Typically, the more you learn about the world, the less you care about archaic 'traditional values' and the huge illusion that is the political world, and the more you want to see human progress. Wars are conservative, healthcare liberal, prohibition conservative, freedom of choice liberal, profit at all costs conservative, saving the planet from pollution liberal.

While conservative citizens wonder whether the president is Christian, a liberal is wishing he'd spend less on a fruitless war against drugs and more on going to space. Conservative politicians want to keep their voters out of school, liberals would give citizenship to educated immigrants who might actually help pull this country out of the last century.

Read up about Paul Weyrich and these New Right Party members. They are AGAINST anything that can open the mind to liberal thinking.

You really arnt grasping the master/slave relationship, the elite go to college and rule, the poor stay poor. 50% of american children are reliant on food stamps, are 50% of parents unemployed? no? then why in the fuck is a job not able to put food on the table? deadbeat business owners have been able to bend the country over a barrel in order to shift their operating costs to taxpayers. people are desperate for work, so they take what they can get, what they can get doesnt make ends meet, theyre stuck and the savings is profit for the business owner at taxpayer expense.

Scott Walker has no college education along with Beck, Hannity and Limbaugh...not all politicians but party pundits.

In Carl Rove's own words. "As people do better, they start voting like Republicans -- unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing".

Look up the quote, he made this statement in an interview with New Yorker Magazine. You should read the article. Google quotes regarding education and republicans for just this year alone. That should make for some interesting reading. Then ask yourself, why and for what purpose would they want people less educated, starting with Kindergartener up to advanced education. History can answer that question for you.

Right on! About time someone told it like it is. This is the president who called the murderous Contra criminals "The moral eqivelant to our founding fathers" while they assassinated Nicaraguan citizens by the thousands, all while mining the Nicaraguan harbors and supporting the Salvadorian death scuads . Our founding fathers must have turned over in their grave to show Regan their butts; as well as the tens of thousands of Central Americans who died in those disastrous wars. This is the man Obama said he admired before he himself became president and models himself after; same Obama who had said that the decision to kill American citizens with drones is an easy one.
About time someone writes about Regan's disastrous presidency and challenges the phony idea that this urderous lunatic was one of our greatest presidents

Great summary.

Don't forget however that the son ( John Hinkley Jr.) of G H W Bush's strongest Texas political backer almost killed Reagan which would have made G H W Bush President in 1981.

John's Dad John Hinckly Senior was president of Vanderbilt Oil which was partners with the Bush's and Vanderbilt was being investigated by Reagan's white house for defrauding the government on oil pricing.

(look it up. there is no "theory" this is all fact as was mentioned in the newspapers of the day - search Google news with old newspaper dates between 1980-1983))

Reagan never acted the same after the assassination attempt.

(Surgery and anesthesia and blood loss affect older people greatly and often affects their mind)

G H W Bush's policies became the Policies of Reagan after Reagan was almost killed.

I'll leave it to your speculation whether or not you think Reagan thought about it when making decisions knowing a supporter of his vice president with ties to his Vice President had almost killed him - how would you act? Especially if you knew that VP's dad had been working with the enemies of the united states during world war 2 and had been censored by the US Senate for it and everyone knew they were members of a secretive group with symbolism similar to Nazi death head symbols.

If you had grown up a midwest farm boy and actor how would that knowledge affect your later Presidential policy decisions?

Wow, you nailed it also. I can see there is a smarter bunch of people on this site, not the tea bangers I usually run into on Huff Post. how awesome to be among smart people for a change. Thank-you for your input!

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