Night Strike wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:How do you compare the short-term gains of reducing taxes with a trend set by Reagan for deficit spending? Or his warmongering policies? Or his war on drugs?
How does that work with promoting "liberty, freedom, and individual freedom"?
Most of Reagan's deficit spending came because he made a deal with Congress to cut spending $3 for every $1 in tax cuts. The tax cuts happened, but not the governmental spending. For the military, their increase in spending was done because Reagan saw an opening to push the Soviets into bankruptcy and topple the regime. It worked. If you're referring to drug testing as a war on drugs, it makes sense that employees should be drug tested because drugs lead to decreased productivity, workplace accidents, etc.
"Drug war," something along these lines:When it comes to Reagan's legacy in drug policy � the drug war, of which he played a major though not lone role in escalating to an unprecedented level � even staunch Reagan enthusiasts are less likely to brag about it than other issues he impacted. Though polling has found that 3/4 of Americans support the drug war, polls also show that 3/4 of Americans consider the drug war to be a failure, and a number of high-level Reagan administration officials have broken fundamentally with the drug war ideology his administration vigorously espoused � votes of confidence in neither case by any means. While some drug war advocates point to decreases in casual drug use rates during the 1980s as measured by government surveys, others point to much more hard-hitting and more accurately measured phenomena such as increased drug trade violence, constant addiction rates, an explosion of HIV transmission through injection drug use, and the rapid growth, seemingly from nowhere, of crack cocaine into a widespread habit having deleterious effects on the nation's inner cities.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/341/reagan.shtmlThe Former Soviet UnionThe soviet's economic policies bankrupted themselves, but I'll admit that Reagan's ramped up spending compelled the Russian government to fold their cards some time sooner than they had to, but it didn't render the Russians powerless. What did the US gain by dumping billions into its war industry?
After the Russian experience with shock transitional economics during 10 years, the Russians could ignore NATO demands/concerns as they invaded Georgia. According to the
Globalist,
1) "[Russia is] now by far the most formidable, best maintained and most modernized nuclear strike force on the planet."
2) "Under Putin, Russia became the world's largest oil and natural gas producing and exporting power."
3) "But those same forces took the United States and its allies totally by surprise in August 2008, when they conquered one-third of the mountainous, supposedly-easy-to-defend former Soviet republic of Georgia in the Caucasus in a mere 48 hours. "
4) "Russia remains the supreme military power across the entire Eurasian landmass. In an increasingly chaotic world, driven by an ever more acute competition over resources, that real military power may well end up counting for a lot."
Yeah, what a "victory" for the US. All that spending gave the USG a stronger incentive to start wars in other countries while obtaining the benefit of... defeating the Soviet Union and having Putin revamp Russia into a supreme regional player which can still challenge US power. Sure, the Russians don't directly counter the USG's global plans as frequently, but all that spending didn't defeat them. They're still a strong player.
Deficit SpendingWas that vote-swapping deal effective? Let's find out:
US Federal Deficits in the 20th Century
Total Government Debt since 1900
Federal Deficit 1900-2016 (interest payments)
Nope! Thanks, Reagan! How's that Reaganite "Freedom" and "Liberty" smell?
