Were Reagan and Bush sr also sham conservatives?

[financeguy]

Apart from the lunatic neo-con fringe, which fortunately is now largely ignored, most sane sensible people now realise that Bush II, as a fiscal conservative, is a complete failure and a complete sham.

Having said that, I found this graph a bit surprising:-

U.S. National Debt Graph



Any idiot knows that Bush II increased the US national debt - but it appears that Reagan and Bush sr had an even WORSE record than Bush II in increasing the debt.

And bear in mind, also, that this graph is based on debt as a % of GDP. You wouldn't want to see a graph of US national debt expressed in nominal terms, it's truly shocking.

(And people say Ron Paul is an extremist for advocating a return to the gold standard and ditching fiat money, which is necessarily, ALWAYS, inflationary, by its very nature. But I digress.)

 

[CTU2fan]

Republicans only get tight with a penny when it comes to feeding poor children; they toss it around more than anyone when it comes to building bombs. Bush 1 and Ronnie Ray-gun were no exception.

 

[2861U2]

Republicans only get tight with a penny when it comes to feeding poor children.

Funny... I could have sworn that this President has done more to help the people of Africa than anyone. Also, I believe it's conservatives who give far more money to charity than liberals.

 

[Dreadsox]

I will ignore the partisan bullshit posted above.

I would challenge that much of Reagan's spending on the military was necessary. The military equiptment and weapons technology was in poor condition when he took office. I am willing to bet Sting could demonstrate that during Reagan's terms it was definitely a revitialization of the military. It is also this spending that helped sign, seal and deliver the end of the cold war.

Presidents are also dealt the reality of the time they are living in. America was hurting in the late 70's. Reagan and Bush brought us out of it in the 80's. Bush unfortunately for him, was at the tail end of the success, and was unrealistically blamed for the economic situation in my opinion.

I find it difficult to completely hold the President responsible for it all, when the reality is there were Democratic DOMINATED congresses during that time. And we all know that Democrats just love to spend spend spend on pork and programs that are not necessarily effective at doing anything other than taking money away from people who have earned it. Sorry - I just thought I would throw this in there, since it appears that partisan stuff seems to be the only way to respond.

Shoot I failed at my opening statement.

 

[CTU2fan]

Funny... I could have sworn that this President has done more to help the people of Africa than anyone. Also, I believe it's conservatives who give far more money to charity than liberals.

Sorry I should have said poor American children. The ones we need social spending for, because the Right like to pick & choose the charities that are "worthy", and since to a neocon a poor American = a lazy American (even if they're in preschool) they're just not worthy.

But back on topic...yes, Reagan and Bush 1 were definitely big spenders, certainly not economic conservatives.

 

[CTU2fan]

I will ignore the partisan bullshit posted above.

I would challenge that much of Reagan's spending on the military was necessary. The military equiptment and weapons technology was in poor condition when he took office. I am willing to bet Sting could demonstrate that during Reagan's terms it was definitely a revitialization of the military. It is also this spending that helped sign, seal and deliver the end of the cold war.

Presidents are also dealt the reality of the time they are living in. America was hurting in the late 70's. Reagan and Bush brought us out of it in the 80's. Bush unfortunately for him, was at the tail end of the success, and was unrealistically blamed for the economic situation in my opinion.

I find it difficult to completely hold the President responsible for it all, when the reality is there were Democratic DOMINATED congresses during that time. And we all know that Democrats just love to spend spend spend on pork and programs that are not necessarily effective at doing anything other than taking money away from people who have earned it. Sorry - I just thought I would throw this in there, since it appears that partisan stuff seems to be the only way to respond.

Shoot I failed at my opening statement.

Regardless of how the money's being spent, it was still spent, richly. Partisanship aside (which my comment was, guilty) the fact remains that while the Republican spin machine was uber-critical of the "tax-and-spend" Democrats the Republicans were doing their own version, call it "debt-and-spend". It certainly wasn't classic conservatism, which I assume was financeguy's point.

 

[Infinity]

Sorry I should have said poor American children. The ones we need social spending for, because the Right like to pick & choose the charities that are "worthy", and since to a neocon a poor American = a lazy American (even if they're in preschool) they're just not worthy.

But back on topic...yes, Reagan and Bush 1 were definitely big spenders, certainly not economic conservatives.

May I ask, why are poor African children not as worthy of charity as poor American children? In most cases, the poor people of Africa are in a much worse situation than are the poor of America.

I'm not defending Bush, however. It is easy to spend money when you are printing it. I can send hundreds of billions of dollars to Africa while running hundreds of billions in deficits.

 

[CTU2fan]

May I ask, why are poor African children not as worthy of charity as poor American children? In most cases, the poor people of Africa are in a much worse situation than are the poor of America.

I don't think either are less worthy, my point was that to the right poor children in other countries are more deserving, whereas poor children here only have thier lazy parents to blame. Sorry I wasn't more clear.