Comments on: Why doesn’t GOP follow the Gipper, 104 today?

By: Adamsmith

Adamsmith — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 19:17:37 +0000

You are completely misrepresenting Forbes. One editorial by a contributor refers to both Reagan’s tax cuts and Volker’s raising interest rates as factors but the publication, and Steve Forbes in particular, attributes the economic boom to Reagan’s tax cuts 1981 Economic Recovery Act and Supply Side Economics.

Governor Reagan’s decentralizing large “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” mental hospitals was part of a nation wide trend that could have been reversed any time in the last five decades. Numerous schools and prisons have been built. Why not mental hospitals if desired?

Yes defense spending resulted in defense workers buying homes in Canoga Park and a few like areas but this did not create wealth throughout the country. Leaving money in the private sector of the whole country through reduced taxes created the boom. Products people wanted got produced and people had the money to buy them. Producing munitions to kill people may keep the wolf away from the door but it does not make for a productive society. Keynesians believe any big government centrally planned squandering of money is good. It isn’t as proved in the Soviet Union, East Germany and North Korea.

By: SkippingDog

SkippingDog — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 21:04:46 +0000

BTW, AdamSmith, even Forbes doesn’t credit Reagan with anything more than being the beneficiary of the Federal Reserve Chairman tightening interest rates and wringing the growing problem of inflation out of our 1970’s economy.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2014/09/18/the-obama-economy-vs-the-reagan-economy-its-literally-no-contest/2/

By: SkippingDog

SkippingDog — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 20:59:03 +0000

In reply to AdamSmith.

Two quick points, AdamSmith. Once Governor Reagan was able to shut down the state mental treatment institutions in favor of what he claimed would be cheaper “community based mental health” programs, it became practically impossible to recreate the previous mental health system. Unbreaking the egg, and all that.

The vast expenditures on military equipment during the Reagen presidential administration were clearly Keynesian economics at work. When Reagan cut taxes and ran the largest annual deficits in history at that time, it was clearly an example of using the credit of the U.S. to provide stimulus through expenditures on military items. That’s why the aerospace industry of California did so well during that period, as did many other defense related businesses. That federal infusion of money moved throughout the economic system, allowing the defense industry workers to buy homes, cars, and other materials, while at the same time supporting the velocity of money through those supporting business ventures. You seem to forget that it was all federal money moving through the system, a clearly Keynesian approach that allowed Reagan and his apologists to claim their voodoo economics was the answer. Kansas is currently providing an example of tax cutting, faith-based economics when the executive doesn’t have the ability to create a budget deficit like Reagan did.

By: AdamSmith

AdamSmith — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 05:08:06 +0000

It always amazes me that Reagan is criticized for the mentally ill now on our streets. He was governor of California in the 1960’s. We’ve had over 50 years of governors since Reagan, any one of whom could have changed this situation.

By: AdamSmith

AdamSmith — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 05:01:44 +0000

It is amazing that some misguided people still cling to debunked Keynesian economic theory. As Reagan knew, squandering money is not the way to prosperity at any level, household or federal government. It is the private sector that produces the goods and services people want and enhancing this sector through reduced taxes and smaller government results in prosperity. Defense spending only benefits a few defense contractors as no wealth is created any more than hiring more police creates prosperity. Additional defense spending by Reagan was necessary to win the cold war which resulted in a significant “peace dividend” later but building another bomb doesn’t provide prosperity. The Left likes Keynesianism because, like the Soviet Union, East Germany and North Korea, it leans toward greater government power and central planning to the detriment of the people it oppresses.

By: SeeSaw

SeeSaw — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 04:55:59 +0000

How come the pundits who always extoll Reagan’s achievments never mention that he ushered in collective bargaining rights for public workers long before Jerry Brown was the Governor? The other thing I remember about Reagan: He gave the
mentally ill residents the right to decide for
themselves whether or not they want professional
help and now, instead of being in Psychiatric
Hospitals, they are wandering the streets and living in
tents on the sidewalks.

By: AdamSmith

AdamSmith — Sat, 07 Feb 2015 17:17:55 +0000

It is amazing that anyone would advocate failed economic policies like Keynesian economics. Squandering money on nonproductive things and activities produces no wealth at any level from household to national. Shifting resources from the government to the private sector through tax reduction under Reagan gave the U.S. a booming economy for decades. It reversed the Keynesian malaise of the Carter years. The relatively short term military expenditures under Reagan eliminated an existential threat of the Soviets and freed the U.S. economy to invest in the private sector where assets that people really want are produced. Military expenditures do not spread wealth to any but a few weapons manufacturers and do not produce wealth any more than hiring more police does. Threats are reduced but wealth and productivity are not increased. This can only be done in the private sector as Reagan knew.

By: SkippingDpg

SkippingDpg — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 22:23:39 +0000

Contemporary Republicans don’t follow Reagan’s faith based economics because they know it doesn’t really work. Reagan’s massive defense build up provided an example of Keynesian economics at its finest, stimulating the overall economy with massive influxes of federal defense dollars. The “peace dividend” resulting from the closure of Cold War hostilities allowed us to reduce the size of our military, particularly since it had received such a large influx of money during the previous decade, all of it on credit. There is no current or anticipated foreign enemy that would require that level of defense build up, and the ships, planes, and arms systems purchased during Reagan’s tenure are at the end of their useful service life.