Pathetic protest in San Francisco

[Prosperity]

Why is it that almost every protesting group is full of jerks? Is it because extremists are jerks no matter what side they land on?

In a basically free society, only the lunies really bother

Back in the civil rights days, those people ought to be respected

Me? I've never thought standing outside with a sign would really do anything but get me dehydrated

[Ghost of]

What I get a kick out of is all of the people who're convinced that Reagan bears no responsibility whatsoever for the budgets which he wrote and proposed.

So what you're saying is that there is no input on the process from your opposition or that it occurs in a political vacuum so that there was no way for Reagan to gauge what would have been politically feasible? That no one whispered to him beforehand about what he could win and what he could not going up against Congress?

of course he bears responsibility. I didn't say otherwise and he was wrong on a number of policy issues which I won't get into here. But to pretend that he had unilateral power to write, propose AND PASS the budget and that it was unimportant or negligible what opposition he would face if he went full-bore with a fiscally minimalist agenda is silly.

EDIT: Finally proven wrong in my expectation! I'm happy.

[Larry]

But to pretend that he had unilateral power to write, propose AND PASS the budget and that it was unimportant or negligible what opposition he would face if he went full-bore with a fiscally minimalist agenda is silly.

And I've never seen a single person try to claim that.

I have seen lots of people claim that the Reagan deficits were entirely Congress' fault.

But the fact remains that every one of those budgets began life as a budget proposal which was entirely and completely written by the White House Budget Office.

Were those budget proposals created in a vacuum? Hardly. But that cuts both ways, too. Every budget Reagan proposed, proposed completely eliminating federal college loans. You wanna try to claim that the White House didn't propose eliminating those loans, in the full political confidence that Congress would put them back in, but the White house would a) get credit for proposing a smaller budget, and

get to complain about Congress driving up federal spending?

And the fact remains that the actual budgets that were passed differed from the budgets that were proposed by, IIR, less than 4%. The "bottom line" of the budgets passed differed from the bottom line that was proposed by around 1%.

(Congress did add spending to Reagan's proposals in some areas, but most of their additions were matched by cuts, elsewhere. The total amount of all of the changes was around 4% of the budget.)

The reason the deficits were larger during the Reagan years wasn't because spending was so much higher, it was because revenues, which did grow, didn't grow as much as the overly optimistic predictions that Reagan made.

But it's an article of faith that Reagan deserves 100% of the credit for the growth of the economy, (during his administration, and for the 20 years thereafter, according to The Faithful. ), and Congress deserves 100% of the blame for the deficit.

[Predicto]

Ronald Reagan's supply siders believed that deficits don't matter. They openly said so. They never tried to hide it.

Reagan was in favor of cutting taxes, in the belief that the resulting growth would more than make up for any loss in revenues and the budget would ultimately balance itself. He was not at all concerned with deficits or the national debt because he believed they would just go away. It is an undeniable fact of history.

Some people still believe that, which is fine. But the idea that Reagan stood for a balanced budget is laughable - but a huge number of Americans believe it to this day.

[ixcuincle]

Jackson held a pimpin' inauguration party at the White House. Bunch of commoners broke in and celebrated with him, those were hilarious days.

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewArticle.asp?id=18536

When Jackson took office as the President of the United States, frontier people came in great crowds to see their champion.

They didn't get all decked out for the occasion. Instead, they wore homemade clothes and coonskin caps to the grand inauguration party. Andrew Jackson had invited the whole nation.

The people gathered in the streets until the guards were unable to hold them back. Soon they bolted through the White House doors like a herd of wild buffalo. People were packed so tight that many items like dishes and vases were broken, and men stood in good chairs with muddy boots just to get a better view.

It became so bad that attendants served large tubs of punch as bait, outside on the White House lawn. It worked, and the crowds gathered on the green for treats and conversation.

To this day, there has never been an inauguration party like that one.

[Larry]

Ronald Reagan's supply siders believed that deficits don't matter. They openly said so. They never tried to hide it.

Reagan was in favor of cutting taxes, in the belief that the resulting growth would more than make up for any loss in revenues and the budget would ultimately balance itself. He was not at all concerned with deficits or the national debt because he believed they would just go away. It is an undeniable fact of history.

Some people still believe that, which is fine. But the idea that Reagan stood for a balanced budget is laughable - but a huge number of Americans believe it to this day.

We may have different perspectives, but I was a fairly regular Rush listener, back then, and I remember being told about three times a day that the Constitution specifically states that all spending bills must originate in the House, and therefore, 100% of all blame for all spending, and all deficits, lay clearly on the House, and to imply anything else was to demonstrate ignorance of the US Constitution.

Me, whenever I've heard some political partisan announce that "deficits don't matter", what I've always heard was "Not one politician, nor one Party, has ever been kicked out of office because of deficits, therefore . . . "

[Mickalino]

Pathetic protest in San Francisco .

And when I first saw the thread title, I thought Westboro Baptist Church travelled to San Francisco to greet the gays

[Reaganaut]

Predicto do you feel that the people wearing Che shirts actually know anything about the man?

If Che looked like Kim Jong Il instead of a Hollywood leading man, nobody would even know his name. I'm sure Predicto has a couple old tattered photos of Che from the 60's pinned to the wall amongst the yellowed pictures of Susan Atkins.

I could use a couple Che prints myself for target practice. :toilet: Yes, that type of target practice. I'd do a Dave Matthews tour van move on those protesters if the opportunity presented itself. :evilg:

[PleaseBlitz]

Stand out with them and try to charge $2 for deluxe hugs.

[Reaganaut]

Stand out with them and try to charge $2 for deluxe hugs.

Oh, and ask them if they're getting paid to do this. When they answer "no" then tell them that's because they're not worth a :toilet:

[mjah]

Ronald Reagan's supply siders believed that deficits don't matter. They openly said so. They never tried to hide it.

Their spirits lived on during the Bush Jr. years too. Borrowing heavily to pay for the Iraq War? Tax cuts while fighting two land wars in Asia? In the words of my neighbor Racist Bill, "I'm not worried about the money."

Of course now he's suddenly, deeply concerned about all of this deficit spending and the Grave Consequences it will have for the nation. By total coincidence, his guy just left office about 100 days ago.

Whaaaaaaatever. Deficits are deficits. The only way to tell them apart is to look at what the money gets used for.