Just now remembered that I meant to say a big "Amen!" to the third of these letters that ran on Thursday:
I think that if I read one more letter praising Ronald Reagan’s tax policies I will be sick.
I
was in the tax business when his 1986 tax reform act was passed. This
act was revenue-neutral. The cut in the top brackets was accomplished
by cutting numerous deductions that the middle class enjoyed. My own
taxes increased more than $2,500.
The idea, of course, was that
those in the top brackets would create jobs and products. The problem
was the middle class had less money to purchase the products.
From
that point on, the discrepancy in accumulated wealth between the middle
and upper classes began to widen, and the government deficit began to
increase.
If you want real tax reform, I have a suggestion: Allow
those who take the standard deduction also to take their charitable
deductions. This would result in churches and other charities being
able to meet the increasing demands they are facing in this current
economy.
WILLIAM R. GEDDINGS JR.
West Columbia
The first year that tax "reform" took effect was my first year at The State. I had taken a big pay cut to come here from Wichita (I SO wanted to be close to all of y'all and I really, REALLY wanted to get the heck out of Kansas). I mean a big one, like 25 percent. Add to that the fact that I was the first (or at least, the only) editor ever hired from out of state (in our daily meetings, pretty much everyone was a USC grad except for the guy who was ostracized for having gone to Clemson), and there simply did not exist a procedure for compensating such new hires for their moving expenses. My boss fiddled the books (legally, acting within he rightful prerogatives) to give me an extra $1,000 in my first paycheck to help me out with that. I went with the cheapest deal with the movers I could get — we did all the packing, in our own boxes — and we drove a lot of stuff ourselves crammed into our two vehicles like the Clampetts heading for California. With needing to stop for the kids, it took us four days to get here. And the move still cost me $1,500 out of my own pocket, which cleaned out our savings account.
We rented because we couldn't afford to buy, and we kept putting food on the table by my wife taking in other kids to care for them along with our four (our fifth was born here the following year).
And THAT year, thanks to Ronald Reagan's tax "reform," was the first time I EVER had to pay more than had been deducted from my paycheck. In fact, I think it still stands as the ONLY time, but I'm not positive; I'd need to check.
So needless to say, I didn't think much of what the Gipper had done for me. Maybe somebody benefited — Gordon Gekko or somebody — but it was pretty painful for me and mine, hitting me in probably the worst year of my adult life for such an unexpected expense.
Not that we should make tax policy based on how it affects yours truly. I'll leave such arguments as that to my libertarian friends. I'm just saying Mr. Geddings' letter struck a chord with me.
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Poor Brad, you’ll be tarred and feathered for this one.
You shouldn’t write such stories about the man who taught America how to hate it’s own government.
I can’t blame you for wanting to get the heck out of Kansas. I had a six month contract in Cedar Rapids extended to seven. Though I enjoyed Iowa and managed to avoid the winter, I longed to be back in Columbia. I did get to waterski on the Mississippi while I was there and I picked up a rather unusual hobby while I was there.
The Carter economic stagflation handed Reagan unemployment rates of 8.8% and banks paying interest rates of 21% on checking accounts. The problem continued, with unemployment going to 10.2% before Reagan was able to pass tax cuts and very quickly turn the economy around.
Show me someone who doesn’t think high tax rates discourage hard work and investment risk, and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t have much ambition, doesn’t make much money, and thinks they are stuck there. They want the rest of the world hobbled out of miserable envy.
A lot of economists are noticing that many indicators have hit bottom and are on a rapid rise. What’s left of the free market is working its way out of this recession.
Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office issued a study saying this stimulus bill…
1. is not needed because the economy is already in recovery,
2. only creates 1,700,000 jobs at best,
3. costs $700,000 per job created
4. will retard the recovery,
5. will stifle growth in the future due to the huge debt and interest costs.
The CBO is staffed with liberal Democrats, not libertarians.
Thanks for the “pretty much everyone was a USC grad except for the guy who was ostracized for having gone to Clemson.”
That pretty much impeaches and convicts The State for me, as if the content hadn’t already done that.
It fits pretty well, too, with your developing a distaste for Reagan that continues to this day: You actually had to pay a bit of tax while he was rescuing us from Jimmy Carter.
And yet you don’t mind prescribing tax hikes such as $2 on gasoline that would force the lower middle class onto bicycles.
And you want all of us to pay for your allergy medicine, too.
Congratulations! You’ve reached the apex of subjectivity.
You’re misunderstanding me, Penultimo. I was describing the set of editors who were here when I got here. Near as I can recall, none of them are at the paper any more. Some have retired. Others moved on. Some left the trade, others practicing it elsewhere. You know Gordon Hirsch, who was a regular commenter here (although I haven’t seen him here in a couple of months)? He was one of those editors. A good bunch of people, but different from what we have today. They had all come up through the ranks at The State. Now, we’re more likely to have people who’ve worked elsewhere as well. We have more of a mix — some folks who’ve been here for decades, some who came from elsewhere in SC, some from much farther away.
I was a departure back then. Since I came in several months after the sale of KR, and my peers were people who had come up at The State in the days of family ownership, I was an oddity. Gordon told me on one of my first days here, “You know you’re the Knight Ridder spy, right?” I laughed, because I was so far from being the corporate type. He said it didn’t matter whether I was that or not; plenty of people in the newsroom would persist in believing it, so I might as well get used to it.
Anyway, in subsequent years, when we’d talk about hiring somebody, part of the discussion was the cost of moving them, because once there were enough KR people here, that was just something that was built into the budget. I just always shook my head, and told them how it was in the OLD days, when we didn’t have any fancy-schmancy relocation budget, and we LIKED it…
You got it wrong about the allergy meds, too. Finally, zyrtec went generic. I buy it over-the-counter at Walmart, for less than my co-pay would have been if insurance were buying it. Nobody’s subsidizing me. My beef before was that Big Pharma had the price jacked up so high that my insurance refused to pay it. But the market still bore that price as far as Big Pharma was concerned, because SOME plans paid for it. I certainly couldn’t afford it on my own, so I went without. Now that they no longer have their monopoly on it, the price is reasonable. The whole mess is ridiculous.
If the for-profit middlemen went away, and there was only ONE payer to negotiate with, we’d have more reasonable prices to start with.
I want to pay my way, p.m. I DO pay my way. I pay about 500 bucks a month in premiums alone. But it shouldn’t cost that much. And it wouldn’t cost that much, if we weren’t having to pay for the profits of the middlemen. I’m not talking about anybody subsidizing me. I’m just talking about squeezing some unnecessary cost out of this unwieldy system we have.
Yeah, Brad, you’re right — $500 a month — $6,000 a year — is too much.
And I’ve got a sweetheart deal: no premiums at at all until age 65.
But I don’t want to lose my sweetheart deal, because sweat and tears paid for it.
Maybe I’ll get lucky. Before I have to pay, maybe universal care will come along and keep me going until I’m 80, before the bottom drops out quality-wise.
Still, I’m thinking The State’s cartel of editors would ostracize any Clemson fellow unlucky enough to find work with your paper as an editor.
Y’all are so pro-Gamecock you’d think the newspaper building was located right by the football stadium or something.
I LOVE picking up unusual hobbies…
If you think your medical insurance premiums are too high for the amount of care you receive, then you should pay less insurance and more out of pocket.
If you had your own medical insurance, instead of getting it through your employer’s relic from FDR wage controls, you could choose a higher deductible to lower your premiums and your overall cost.
Now, now p.m., leave these poor Gamecocks alone. They need all the breaks they can get.
Bless their hearts.
Nuts,
Just when I think I have Brad figured out, he goes and gets all reasonable and intelligent.
Good Post, BW
Good job Brad. That was one of your best. Of course the Reagan tax policies mostly benefited the wealthy. It was called “trickle down” economic. The only thing that trickled down was the urine from the wealthy all over the rest of us. The wage gap continues to widen and even today the arrogant SOBs don’t get it with all their golden parachutes and high priced junkets at taxpayers expense.
But I’m a bit curious about this: “My boss fiddled the books (legally, acting within he rightful prerogatives) to give me an extra $1,000 in my first paycheck to help me out with that”.
-Brad
So you took a 25% pay cut back in the 80s. Then you were able to finagle $1k extra on your first pay check. $1k was a pretty good paycheck for a half-month paycheck in the 80s. Since the $1k was just the EXTRA amount on a greatly REDUCED salary you must have been in high cotton (or high wheat) back in Kansas.
Bud, Reagan’s tax policies created more than 20 consecutive years of growth. The growth ended in 2007. You’re a smart guy. Why don’t you put yourself on the high end of the wage gap?
Birch, you make your own breaks. Those who continually embarrass themselves do so for a reason.
very interesting op-ed by a Reagan aide; copy and paste:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-edwards24-2009jan24,0,3344794.story
All wealth trickles down from those who create it, to those who have to work for someone else.
The Reagan Boom didn’t trickle down to individual government workers, because they are not part of the business economy. They don’t have anything to do with wealth creation. Many of them cannot get any job at any level in the private sector.
Socialism just consumes wealth, dragging everyone except the rulers down into poverty.
The wage gap continues to widen and even today the arrogant SOBs don’t get it with all their golden parachutes and high priced junkets at taxpayers expense.
I think this must be in reference to our Republican and Democrat friends living large in the Congress on the taxpayer dollar. Right on, bud. The arrogant SOBs are voting themselves raises and collecting very generous retirement benefits while the rest of us suffer. And on top of that, they send our hard-earned, middle class dollars to whichever of their big-money buddies needs a boost all in the name of a “bailout” or “stimulus.”
Did you see the photos of the halls of Congress clogged with lobbyists trying to grab a chunk of this pork spending?
None of them were there representing the little man on the street, or middle-class families with both parents working. They were there representing government agencies, big corporations, unions, and bankrupt states and cities.
Under the radar, Democrats raised their own petty cash accounts by $93,000 with no accounting required. If they stay in office six years, they get retirement package worth $2,500,000.
Their media buddies keep the public’s attention on “18 billion in bonuses for Wall Street”, without explaining that is among 100,000 workers who are paid a small base salary and the rest is commission.
Martin, while that LA Times piece may be right that Reagan wouldn’t want Limbaugh-Coulter politics to be considered his, it does not say that Reagan’s policies were wrong.
As it can be shown Reagan ushered in more than two decades of economic growth, the letter Brad endorsed is just so much Democrat poppycock.
Martin, while that LA Times piece may be right that Reagan wouldn’t want Limbaugh-Coulter politics to be considered his, it does not say that Reagan’s policies were wrong.
As it can be shown Reagan ushered in more than two decades of economic growth, the letter Brad endorsed is just so much Democrat poppycock.
Specifically, whatever two Bushes, Clinton and their congresses did deficit-wise can’t be blamed on Reagan.
And the headline is exactly backward: How could a slide have begun with Reagan when Carter’s economy was a catastrophe (to borrow an Obama phrase) compared to his?
Reagan famously stated that government wasn’t the solution; government was the problem. But is it excessive government spending on social programs that got us into this mess?
George Bush cut taxes back in 2001. Why didn’t that work if tax cuts are such a good deal?
Folks, the Republicans lost the election. They need to be handed another major defeat. We should not compromise on one red cent of the stimulus package, if only to show the GOP where the power is now.
Go ahead! Filibuster! See how the country reacts to that! Besides, there’s only so much talking you can do before everyone realizes who’s doing the obstructing.
Oh, and I have another solution to our political impasse in the Senate: a constitutional amendment to abolish the Senate and to constitute the Congress as a unicameral legislature.
There are too many anachronisms in our constitution that have been used historically to prevent needed legislation on everything from education to the prevention of lynching.
We are witnessing a Congressional process on a national level that should show the country that the current system of legislation is unwieldy and inefficient. It’s not the people in Congress here who are the problem–it’s a system designed to get little or nothing done, in spite of elections!
Smart idea, Rich. Not one cent of compromise, and it won’t pass the Senate. No Republican votes, and even Feinstein would vote against it.
Have a nice day culturally in church tomorrow.
Rich, two points — and I would like for you to address them:
1. Since they have been such a failure, why is Obama not repealing the Bush Tax Cuts as he has been called to do? Also, why is he planning on cutting 95% of people’s taxes? How can you support this man?
2. How can you be so eager to give the Democratic Party complete control over our government? This is the party that voted largely in favor of the Iraq War, the USA PATRIOT Act, and a bailout bill giving billions to “greedy” Wall Street with very little oversight.
Do not just respond by bashing the Republican Party. I think we both can agree that they are a failed party. I am asking how it is possible for you to support the other failed party.
P.M. is of course living in a different universe. But in this universe the Reagan economic policies brought us huge deficits, a huge federal government, a huge gap in income and failed utterly to sustain growth or prosperity. Thanks to Reagan we had the Reagan recession of 82-83, the Bush Sr. recession of 90-91 and his legacy led to the disasterous policies of Bush Jr. who reversed the successful Clinton boom economy which ultimately led to the rolling recessions of the Bush Jr. years and has culminated in the calamity of the current economic disaster.
A good case could be made that Reagan was the most disasterous president since Hoover when it comes to economic progress. At least Hoover’s legacy was not carried forward by the GOP into the future.
Yet Reagan’s sorry legacy lives on with the Limbaugh/Coulter wing of the GOP. That wing has apparenlty become the fuselage and other wing also as the only Republicans left subscribe to the failures of the past 8 years. And if they keep it up the GOP will be nothing but a Piper Cub.
78% of Americans oppose the spending bill.
22% support it.
59% would prefer a large tax cut to any spending.
– CBS poll 2/5/2009
Spending this much money should take months to debate. If Obama really believed it was urgent, he would separate out the most critical elements, and those promising the most immediate effect and attempt to pass those first. The rest of the spending, of marginal value, and not occurring for years in the future, can be debated later.
Or just have a roll-call vote on each line item, and only pass a bill with items which received a majority passage. At least that way, we would know that someone had actually read the laws before voting on them.
Rich and bud missed out on the Reagan Prosperity because they were not participants in the private sector. They made the choice to not take the risks or make the efforts necessary to earn wealth, and that is fine, but they shouldn’t begrudge those who did.
After all, without the creators of wealth paying taxes, there would be no taxes to pay government employees.
The Democracy has had a checkered history, that is for sure. But the Democrats have never been willing to allow people to starve in the streets, as have the Republicans.
The Republican Party is basically the party of religious fanatics, resentful, middle-aged white men who see life and opportunity passing them by, rich people who don’t believe they have any social responsibility whatsoever, and, most dangerously, a military-industrial complex that benefits from war and war-related spending.
Obama can safely dispatch with the conservatives, the rich, the resentful, and religious yahoos. But to engage in a frontal assault on out-of-control military spending and the people who control it and use it is to invite a coup d’état.
Rich, there are a lot of very fine people in the Republican Party — good, sober, industrious people who simply believe in the traditional values that their parents and grandparents taught them, and there’s nothing wrong with that. (My favorite song in “Fiddler on the Roof” — which I saw during the 2004 GOP convention in NYC, starring Alfred Molina as Tevye — is “Tradition.” I like the sentiment it expresses.)
And there are a lot of very fine people in the Democratic Party — caring, sensitive folk who “care about evil and social injustice,” as the song says. They have generous hearts, and they want peace and prosperity for all, regardless of race, color or creed. They want everyone to have an equal voice, an equal chance. They can be deeply moral people, but have a live-and-let-live approach to other people’s values. All very fine sentiments.
For these reasons, there are many people I respect and even admire who are either Democrats or Republicans.
But I can’t stand the parties themselves. Once people band together in “us-vs.-them” alignments, fairness, open-mindedness and intellectual honesty go out the window. Good, smart people surrender their thought processes to a group. They support bad ideas because they come from their side of the aisle, and oppose good ideas because they come from the opposition.
I like plenty of Republicans and Democrats, but I hate what their parties do to them…
Bud, I live in a universe where “disastrous” is spelled without an “e”, not your alternate universe.
In my universe, what you called the “Reagan recession” began in July 1981 and ended in November 1982, caused by Fed chairman Paul Volcker slowing the rate of growth of the money supply and raising interest rates to curtail 7.7% inflation.
By the end of 1983,inflation shrank to 3.2 percent.
In 1984, Reagan was re-elected in an electoral- and popular-vote landslide that make’s Obama recent victory look like a photo finish.
When Reagan was first inaugurated on Jan. 20, 1981, during his inaugural speech, 52 Americans held hostage the previous 444 days under Jimmy Carter were released in Iran.
Not quite three weeks after Obama’s inauguration, during a recession that could be blamed on him just as the one that started in 1981 could be blamed on Reagan, one of Iran’s top officials demanded apologies before his country will engage in talks with the United States.
Iran feared Reagan, but expects Obama’s sympathy. And, so far, our novice president has offered nothing else.
Moreso than any other president of my lifetime, Reagan made me proud, bud. He played his hand from a position of strength. What he did worked — in Grenada, in Libya, in Iran, in Berlin…
Three weeks into Obama’s presidency, he can’t negotiate even with his own party’s leaders from a position of strength on the first legislation of his presidency.
So you’re right. I welcome Reagan to my universe. I just wish you’d stop mischaracterizing his presidency.
The State newspaper reports this morning that the state budget may need to be cut by another half billion dollars, reducing our spending to 2005 levels.
Folks, this is not a state with much government waste, if any. Teacher salaries stand at about $47K a year; much less is paid to state employees and police on average. Our correctional facilities are way understaffed and their officers underpaid. Who can live on $25K a year?? Some of our police do it.
If you want to control crime, then we need well-paid and numerous police officers; if you want a well educated workforce ready to work in private industry, you need a good educational system. if you want to transport goods and people where they need to go, then you need roads, bridges, and other infrastructure. If you want to keep the weakest among us and our senior citizens living in modest dignity, then you need government services targeted to these groups.
Government is the solution, not the problem. Government is people helping people. Yes, it also means spreading the wealth. How many billions in the bank do you need to live? If you make a great deal, then you derive a disproportionate benefit from government in the form of educated workers, social programs, and infrastructure–all of which support your business. Guess what? You should be expected to pay more.
Remember Republican Herbert Hoover? Before FDR took over in 1933, people were starving in the streets, the country was seriously listening to a strong CPUSA make its case for the overthrow of capitalism, and the economy was continuing downward under the same Republican mantras we have been hearing today–tax cuts (especially for the wealthy and for industry), minimal social spending, and untouched military spending.
You want to reduce spending? Cut our military expenditures by 2/3. The Soviet Union no longer exists and Iran is quite incapable of invading the US.
Today’s Republican Party is Lincoln’s party in name only. If he were around to see them today (including the quiet, but seething base that bitterly resents being led by a black man–you wait, they’ll start saying stupid stuff very soon), I do believe he’d vote Democratic.
Brad seems to feel that partisanship is the problem. No, it’s not partisanship, it’s ideological intransigence. The Republican Party has become obstructionist.
There’s something they fear more than taxes, and that’s the idea that government is the solution and not the problem!
Yeah, pm, Iran really feared Reagan. That’s why they funded and gave support to the terrorists who bombed the barracks in Beirut. Yeah, real scared. Oh sure, they knew we were an adversary. They knew that because Reagan sent Don Rumsfeld to buddy up and send weapons to a certain, um, what was his name, Sa, Sad, oh yeah, Saddam Hussein. And I’m glad you mentioned Grenada first among the many serious “threats” this country faced in that era. Yeah, thank goodness we had such a strong leader in those days.
And Libya? A terrorist regime to be sure, Reagan bombs Tripoli a bit to make us all feel good, and afterwards they blow up Pan Am 103. Then Reagan leaves office. What exactly did Reagan do that “worked” in Libya? (Changes in Libya’s attitudes only came about in the later 1990’s and on into Bush’s administration…W deserves more credit on Libya than Reagan).
Let’s also not forget the hundreds and even thousands of innocent civilians killed in Central America thanks to the support, financing, and arming of right-wing militias by the Reagan Administration.
It’s hard to believe that we are farther away in time from the day Reagan took office than that day is from the 1961 Eisenhower farewell address warning of the rise of the “military-industrial complex.” What Reagan achieved was to raise the power of that “complex” to levels of permanence. The power is now such that our national priorities continue to be seriously warped.
We even see that in the changes to the recent spending bill, where funding for Head Start was cut but Pentagon funding increased. When it comes to Reagan Republicans, given the choice between children and guns, they’ll take the toys for blowing up people every time.
P.M. ignores much in his highly skewed view of the world. In particular his lack of understanding of the Gipper stands in stark contrast with reality. The Reagan recession stands as the worst since the great depression. That is just a fact. The Iranian hostages captured during Carter’s tenure ALL came home alive thanks to a president who resisted paying ransom. In contrast to Carter’s shrewd handling of a hostage crises we have Reagan’s failed efforts to similar events. Several Americans were captured and killed during Reagan’s tenure. Others were released only after ransom was paid in the form of trading arms for hostages.
Those are just facts. The Reagan years saw the beginning of huge budget deficits that reeked havoc on the American economy for generations. The size of the federal government increased during the Reagan years. Today we still live with the collapse in the manufacturing sector that began during Reagan’s tenure. His own VP, Bush Sr., was defeated for re-election as a consequence of the 90-91 recession resulting from the failed policies of trickle down.
The Reagan legacy is largely a fantasy of the neo-con imagination. Fact is Reagan destroyed much of what has made America great. He destroyed our respect from the nations abroad by his cowtowing to terrorists. He destroyed hundreds of marines lives in a misguided attempt at imperialism. He marshalled in the current era of terrorism by caving to terrosist demands. His most damnable legacy is his breathtaking economic failures resulting from the reverse Robinhood trickle down fiasco. The only public property that should be named after Reagan is the public landfill. The Reagan National Dump. That about sums up the legacy of Ronald Reagan.
The GOP campaign secretly negotiated with the Iranians to keep those innocent people held hostage until after the election.
Geddings and Warthen.
A couple of guys who can give negative, purely anecdotal sob stories about how Ronald Reagans’ policies affected their personal lives.
And based on nothing more than that I suppose we’re just supposed to forget what a great president we had in Reagan.
David
The state budget has exploded since 2005, squandering almost $3 BILLION in surplus tax revenues from the booming economy.
Legislators blew it on pork instead of paying off debt. They screwed up.
So go back to the budget of 2005 or 2004 or 2003, which were all increased much larger than the growth of the population or family incomes.
The federal government should go back to the budget of 2001, and balance the budget.
Let’s not forget the millions of innocent people in Asia and Central America who were murdered by communists with the encouragement of Democrats in America.
Chris Dodd and others treated the Sandanistas like royalty. Dodd and Panetta used their connections to the communists in Nicaragua and Cuba to negotiate the release of mercenaries from Dodd’s state of Connecticut.
The Republican Party is basically the party of religious fanatics, resentful, middle-aged white men who see life and opportunity passing them by, rich people who don’t believe they have any social responsibility whatsoever, and, most dangerously, a military-industrial complex that benefits from war and war-related spending.
Rich, is very disappointing to read coming from you. The gross generalizations and stereotypes used in that statement are the same tools that bigots use to spread their preferred form of ignorance. Don’t stoop to their level.
Today’s Republican Party is Lincoln’s party in name only. If he were around to see them today (including the quiet, but seething base that bitterly resents being led by a black man–you wait, they’ll start saying stupid stuff very soon), I do believe he’d vote Democratic.
Well, I’m glad it’s not Lincoln’s party anymore. Lincoln’s treatment of civil liberties in this country during the war make Bush look like a card-carrying member of the ACLU. Also his views on slavery were conflicted at best: I’m not going to interfere with slavery; no slavery in new territories; I hate slavery; blacks are inferior to whites; blacks should be sent out of this country; I’ll free the slaves in rebelling states but not the North.
But in the schools where you learn America is a land of great heroes that has never done any wrong, it doesn’t matter.
The Democratic Party of the 1960s was patriotic, too. Most of them would vote against the socialism of today’s Democratic Party, and they did vote against it.
Liberals like John Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey were life members of the NRA.
The Democratic Party today is run by white elites at the top, with a base of government employees, union bosses, and those living off welfare and racist contracts and loans.
But I can’t stand the parties themselves. Once people band together in “us-vs.-them” alignments, fairness, open-mindedness and intellectual honesty go out the window. Good, smart people surrender their thought processes to a group. They support bad ideas because they come from their side of the aisle, and oppose good ideas because they come from the opposition.
I like plenty of Republicans and Democrats, but I hate what their parties do to them…
This sums up why I could never vote for, endorse, or otherwise support an R or a D. Also, I can’t understand why anyone else would.
Those are just facts. The Reagan years saw the beginning of huge budget deficits that reeked havoc on the American economy for generations. The size of the federal government increased during the Reagan years.
And the Bush II-Obama years are just a continuation of that policy. Give people government benefits but don’t make them pay for it.
Do you agree that Bush II-Obama policies have/are going to “wreak havoc” on our economy?
Birch, Obama’s policies have not even passed congress yet so how can we rate their impact on the economy? As for Jr., of course they did great harm to our economy. I’ll get back to you in about 3 years with a report on Obama but I predict great success with falling unemployment and budget deficts well before 2012.
These bills are not “Obama’s policies”. They are Pelosi and Reid’s policies. They cooked up the bills before Obama was even certifed by the Electoral College. Obama is just the new salesman.
This bill is only part of the spending spree:
* $350 BILLION disbursed so far for TARP
* $350 billion still unspent for TARP
* $500 BILLION more planned for TARP
* $600 BILLION increase in the M2 money supply by the Federal Reserve since November.
* $1.3 TRILLION regular spending bill by Democrats before June
Bud, I’m just happy you don’t teach history.
Peace.
None of those in this blog who claim to teach actually teach history. Some of them may teach propaganda, packaged as history and some other subjects.
Lee, if anyone knows propaganda, you’re the one who does.
Rahm Emmanuel speech on using crisis as propaganda
The Opportunities of Crisis
http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=_mzcbXi1Tkk
These tactics come straight out of communist agitation and propaganda training. Obama and his team of socialists are quite familiar with this training.
“And Not a Shot is Fired” by Jan Kozak , explains this entire strategy. Jan Kozak, who was then a member of the Czechoslovak
Communist Party Central Committee, explains how a free government was actually transformed into a totalitarian dictatorship – legally.
The creation of “emergencies” is a part of the totalitarian agenda. The creation of “emergencies” gives the government an excuse to “crack down”. Then the creation of tyranny becomes justifiable and inevitable.
The creation of “emergencies” is a part of the totalitarian agenda. The creation of “emergencies” gives the government an excuse to “crack down”.
-Lee
Dang Lee, you have an incredible knack for finding information that proves exactly the opposite point that you’re trying to address. That statement supports those of us who believe Bush was using scare tactics to gain more power through such stuff as the Patriot Act, the Iraq invasion bill, warrantless wiretapping, torture and a host of other scary demogoguery. But the above quite is completely irrelevant to Obama’s administration.
“And Not a Shot is Fired” by Jan Kozak is not about Iraq.
I have other speeches by Rahm Emmanuel on how to create panic, manipulate public opinion, demonize opponents, create new felonies for political beliefs, silence newspaper and radio – people like “bud” and “rich” would be cheering all of it.