Wednesday, August 17, 2011

So those of you that are conservative... keep pointing out that we should follow Reagan's policies.?

Well I should point out that Reagan's policies coupled with deregulation have lead us to where we are now... and where have the jobs gone since Reagan??? Reagan very significantly increased public expenditure, primarily the Department of Defense, which rose (in constant 2000 dollars) from $267.1 billion in 1980 (4.9% of GDP and 22.7% of public expenditure) to $393.1 billion in 1988 (5.8% of GDP and 27.3% of public expenditure); most of those years military spending was about 6% of GDP, exceeding this numbers in 4 different years. All these numbers had not been seen since the end of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War in 1973.[14] In 1981, Reagan significantly reduced the maximum tax rate, which affected the very wealthy, and lowered the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 50%; in 1986 he further reduced the rate to 28%.[15] As a result of all this, the budget deficit and federal debt increased considerably: debt grew from 33.3% of GDP in 1980 to 51.9% at the end of 1988 [16] and the deficit increased from 2.7% in 1980 to more than double in 1983, when it reached 6%; in 1984, 1985 and 1986 it was around 5%.[17] In order to cover new federal budget deficits, the United States borrowed heavily both domestically and abroad, raising the national debt from $700 billion to $3 trillion,[18] and the United States moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor nation.[19] Reagan described the new debt as the "greatest disappointment" of his presidency.[18]. Even reagan realized that lowering the Tax rate on those that can afford it didn't do anything but increase debt... now add to all this that deregulation has lead to out and out theft to off shore banks and that reducing unions in our country has just lowered that amount of people that could afford to pay taxes in the middle cl.

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