Opinion: Reagan the Keynesian

Ideally, I support a near complete free market, with the exception for the military, courts,and other Constitutional entities. I support original means of revenue generation over use of an income tax. I prefer use of excises over imposts or traditional forms of taxes. I refer to myself as a pragmatic and syncretic libertarian. I aim for greater individual freedom and liberty. I see the path to do so as gradual liberalizing of the economy, which will require an initial mix of free market-based and government-based initiatives, eventually moving towards more market-based initiatives.

 

Actually, I partially blame Reagan for the mess we are in now. After all, Cheney famously said that Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. Thus we were subjected to the "W" economic nightmare followed by the Obama nightmare.

Off the top of my head I can think of some differences between Reagan and Obama. First of all, Reagan had a much healthier economy and a much lower debt to GDP ratio to work with. As a result, he got away with deficit spending with fewer ill effects than Obama. Secondly, Reagan was not at war with the economy. Reagan was not trying to shove cap and tax down our throats and trying to convince us that "green jobs" would make up for the carnage created by cap and trade such as coal goig bye, bye, and he never said that his policies would make energy prices escalate. Reagan was not trying to create massive entitlements that would make business take pause to hire more employees in regards to the implications of Obamacare on their business. And lastly, no one got the sense that Reagan was just itching for the economy to recover so he could tax the poo out of the nation.

Of course, it also helped to know that Reagan was not raised by radical Marxists and that he was proud to be an American. In fact, we knew him to be an American. I think Reagan's downfall was that he was willing to compromise with the left. He was not willing to tackle entitlements and he also chose Bush as a VP to try and pacify the moderates in the GOP. As we can see, there is no compromise, just defeat. You either defeat your adversary or let them walk all over you.

 

I would attribute Reagan and Cheney's adherence to the 'deficits don't matter' mantra to Irving Kristol, the godfather of neoconservatism.

 

Reagan is partially to blame for the current mess, indeed, but not for any of the stupid reasons you talked about.

He was a big part of the ideological shift towards deregulation. Of course, Clinton deserves more blame. He not only deregulated more, but created a bipartisan consensus in favor of doing so.

 

Economies are a complicated mess, so you tend to gravitate toward a belief system of sorts to explain it because you cannot prove causation. You then gravitate toward a religion type of belief system. Unfortunatly, you have a group of "intellectuals" who tell us that they understand it all. In fact, Obama said that the stimulus would put unemployment below 8% and provide and "X" number of jobs. It never did. I'm not sure if he really believed that or that he said it just to sell the stimulus. Either way, it shows that they are all in way over their heads. In fact, that is the plight of a planned economy. I think history has shown that the more an economy is planned and controlled, the less robust it becomes. With the Executive Department churning out thousands, if not more, regulations every year how can you say that deregulation is only to blame for economic ruin? Could it be, maybe just maybe, that all of this continual assault on what is left of the free market via regulation 24/7 has something to do with our economic decline? .

God forbid!! So get up in that pulpit of yours and preach to us as to why you believe I'm wrong.

What I think is really sick is the way that Wall Street hinges on Ben Barnankes every word to decide if they should buy or sell. Does that sound like a free economy to you?

 

Descriptions of robustness (negative/positive) depends upon what you are talking about.

 

yeah no

 

I attribute it to the nanny state. The "deficits don't matter" doctrine is the only way to keep the nanny state afloat. After all, there is no real way to pay for it and it seems both parties have embraced the doctrine as is.

 

The mantra is a philosophical tenet of neoconservatism. Kristol's analysis of government, including that of welfare contribute to his use of the saying.

 

You just contradicted yourself. But then I'm used to it?

 

That is just it, I think he was merely observing it and not contributing to it by what he had to say. With or without him we would still be where we are at today.

 

The Republican Party would not be as liberal as it is today without the philosophical contributions of Kristol, Strauss, and other early ideologues of neoconservatism.

 

I disagree. Politics is the pursuit of governmental power but conservatism is the pursuit to keep such power in check. So in a way conservatism is incapatalbe with politics for this reason. After all, you never hear in campaign speeches what politicians will not do for you, it is always about them gaining power over a situation and "fixing" it for you.

So is Obama and the rest of his democrat cronnies any different from neocons? It seems that he has been influenced by these neocons as well. LOL.

 

Neoconservatism originates from the Democratic Party as its subjects would be supportive of Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal policies. Infiltration of the Republican Party, however, begins when ideologues are disenchanted due to Great Society initiatives.

 

Let's just say it all started with the progressive movement about the turn of the 20th century and leave it at that. Of course, a progression to this led to the progressive movement, so I guess you could say that over time all governments gravitate toward this collectivist control freak mind set. It has nothing to do with commentators simply observing it, rather, it just appears to be human nature.

As a conservative, I don't anticipate anyone in government defending conservatism, rather, I only anticipate them giving lip service to defending them. Of course you may have a few small victories here and there. Reagan was a good example of this. Conservatise ideals are like the Bible, you have a warning issued for various behavoirs that people glibly ignore and scoff at as they smile and say that they don't believe it. It is to be expected.