By 2004, Clinton was no longer relative, and you dodged Dad's entire post without a challenge. No surprises there! Bush had the leverage and the power to move forward with home ownership, when he was warned not to. Blaming Clinton is a cop out. No one held a gun to Bush's head. Frank's wanted rental housing. Bush ignored that too.
Neither Bush or Clinton had any clue how Wall Street worked nor did they expect them to engage in quasi-criminal behavior. They both believed in rational markets and the power of freedom to reign in a new era of prosperity for all. They were wrong. The difference is that if you asked them both today, one would understand the mistake, the other would say there was nothing they could have done about it. This is the essence of the difference between the left and right. The left may get it wrong but they learn and correct mistakes. The right doubles down because they are first and foremost a party of ideology, a static view of the world that demands obedience to principle even as the ship goes down. - - - Updated - - - I suggest you educate yourself, start with Econ 101. Come back when you know something.
Presidents who cut spending as a percentage of GDP experience faster growth, regardless of party. It's happened every single time, all the way back to Geo. Washington, without exception. Every one.
Awesome post! I'm sure someone will come along and destroy those highlighted points you bring up as to how government was such a huge factor in shaping this country.
I agree with you on raising corporate taxes - but only on net profits, not revenues. Any capital investments a corporation makes are written off as a legitimate business expense, and so higher taxes on profits will be an incentive to re-invest. I disagree with you on mergers and acquisitions, though - when they're done right, they can lead to efficiencies of scale. I'd take a hands-off approach here and only intervene on grounds of anti-trust or national security concerns.
Everybody gets stuck in their paradigms - liberals were stuck in the "big government is good" paradigm too long when inflation was running rampant in the 70's. Paradigms are like stereotypes - they don't just appear out of nowhere... there's a reason they exist, but the danger comes in assuming they're written in stone and are always going to be valid. Everybody has to change with the times or risk becoming a dinosaur.
Geez, Old Man - I'm not Stalin. The way I figure it, capital is like water - it tends to flow wherever there's a hole. My argument is that cutting taxes on the wealthy tends to put more water in the bucket.
Just off the top of my head, the Eisenhower to Kennedy and Carter to Reagan cases tend to dispute your statement. Both times the successor raised spending and experienced faster growth than their predecessor.
I disagree - you're in a competition with China and India. You've got quality, they've got quantity. They're intensely focused on improving their quality... so what are you doing to improve your quantity? Open the doors, let them in... take a look at who these people are. They are unhappy with the circumstances of their birth and got up off their duffs and went out and did something about it. They aren't lazy - the lazy ones stayed home and wallowed in their poverty. It seems to me that these are exactly the kind of people you want coming here. Like the sign says, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Guess I must have misread your previous post quoted below which seems to blame Obama for the 9 million job losses: Originally Posted by Hoosier8 Bush had one of the lowest rates of unemployment in history, you are not going to add jobs when the market is already full of jobs and you are going to lose them when an equity bubble bursts. Obama adding jobs is not hard after loosing more than 9 million of them to begin with. Net job gain has been relatively flat under Obama considering what needs to be added due to population growth.
If you actually believe the opportunities for Sucess are equal for all you are severely mistaken. Class mobility in the United States is very low compared to the rest of the developed world. Of course some from the poor rise to the top and vice versa but this does not disprove the actual data. People who,are born in upper class families get a better education, better health care, better nutrition etc and have a higher rate of financial Sucess than those born in less privileged circumstances. I am not saying This is bad but it is to the benefit of the United States to try and optimize the opportunities for all. I have two grandchildren who go to private schools at about thirty thousand a year and a teacher student ratio about 1/10 and the resources the classrooms are amazing. My wife's son teaches in a poor public school and the resources and overall quality of the teachers is amazingly inferior. There is no way you can tell me the educations in these schools are even close to equal nor can you even pretend the chances for Sucess of the students is in the least comperable. - - - Updated - - - But the sentence is not!
Regan and Eisenhower both cut spending as a percentage of GDP over their terms. One of the best performers was Clinton, who shrank government and managed 3.15% economic growth, contrasted to GWB, who grew government and only managed a 1.26% growth. The most frugal was Thomas Jefferson, who spent 1.85% of GDP and managed 4.47% growth. The worst performer was...... Barack Obama (through 2013) who greatly grew government as a %GDP and had, to that time, managed a paltry 0.29% economic growth (actually negative if you adjust for population). The top 5 smallest spenders averaged 5.2% growth, whereas the top 5 largest spenders averaged 1.26% growth. Of our 20 Presidents with the highest rates of economic growth, 18 of them spent less than 4% of GDP on the Federal Government. Every single time, without exception, presidents who grow government as %GDP, slow economic growth. And presidents who shrink it, accelerate growth. Every time.
More a matter of market forces than anything a President can do, such as the housing bubble or the internet bubble which no President is responsible for and shares equal blame, regulation wise, among democrats and republicans. What Presidents can be held to is what propaganda they spout without telling the whole picture.
It should be noted that the only way the government can make you rich is by either being a top tier politician or with crony capitalism, driven by the top tier politicians.
“Government has no wealth, and when a politician promises to give you something for nothing, he must first confiscate that wealth from you..." - John Wayne
"Regan and Eisenhower both cut spending as a percentage of GDP over their terms" lol You mean Reagan DRASTICALLY increased spending (while gutting taxes/revenues) at the start of his term but as the nations debt tripled under him spending slowed???? Spending during Reagan's two terms (FY 19818 averaged 22.4% GDP, well above the 20.6% GDP average from 1971 to 2009, as he gutted revenues http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200
I can't deny that, but on the other hand I don't think they were waiting for me to show up before they started to aggressively expand their industrial bases.
More right wing garbage "Another form of easing facilitated the rapid rise of mortgages that didn't require borrowers to fully document their incomes. In 2006, these low- or no-doc loans comprised 81 percent of near-prime, 55 percent of jumbo, 50 percent of subprime and 36 percent of prime securitized mortgages." https://www.dallasfed.org/assets/documents/research/eclett/2007/el0711.pdf Q HOLY JESUS! DID YOU JUST PROVE THAT OVER 50 % OF ALL MORTGAGES IN 2006 DIDNT REQUIRE BORROWERS TO DOCUMENT THEIR INCOME?!?!?!? A Yes. Q WHO THE HELL LOANS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO PEOPLE WITHOUT CHECKING THEIR INCOMES?!?!? A Banks. Q WHY??!?!!!?! A Two reasons, greed and Bush's regulators let them Bush's documented policies and statements in timeframe leading up to the start of the Bush Mortgage Bubble include (but not limited to) Wanting 5.5 million more minority homeowners Tells congress there is nothing wrong with GSEs Pledging to use federal policy to increase home ownership Routinely taking credit for the housing market Forcing GSEs to buy more low income home loans by raising their Housing Goals (2004) Lowering Investment bank's capital requirements, Net Capital rule (2004) Reversing the Clinton rule that restricted GSEs purchases of subprime loans (2004) Lowering down payment requirements to 0% (2004) Forcing GSEs to spend an additional $440 billion in the secondary markets (2003) Giving away 40,000 free down payments (2004) PREEMPTING ALL STATE LAWS AGAINST PREDATORY LENDING (2003) But the biggest policy was regulators not enforcing lending standards. Conservatives Cant Escape Blame for the Financial Crisis The onset of the recent financial crisis in late 2007 created an intellectual crisis for conservatives, who had been touting for decades the benefits of a hands-off approach to financial market regulation. As the crisis quickly spiraled out of control, it quickly became apparent that the massive credit bubble of the mid-2000s, followed by the inevitable bust that culminated with the financial markets freeze in the fall of 2008, occurred predominantly among those parts of the financial system that were least regulated, or where regulations existed but were largely unenforced. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2010/12/21/8832/politics-most-blatant/ MORE ON DUBYA'S REGULATOR FAILURE HERE: http://www.politicalforum.com/political-opinions-beliefs/394878-facts-dubyas-great-recession.html
More right wing nonsense NOT BASED IN REALITY "Obama (through 2013) who greatly grew government as a %GDP and had, to that time, managed a paltry 0.29% economic growth (actually negative if you adjust for population)." Who Is The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower? Would You Believe It's Barack Obama? So, how have the Republicans managed to persuade Americans to buy into the whole Obama as big spender narrative? It might have something to do with the first year of the Obama presidency where the federal budget increased a whopping 17.9% going from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. Ill bet you think that this is the result of the Obama sponsored stimulus plan that is so frequently vilified by the conservatives but you would be wrong. The first year of any incoming president term is saddledfor better or for worsewith the budget set by the president whom immediately precedes the new occupant of the White House. Indeed, not only was the 2009 budget the property of George W. Bushand passed by the 2008 Congressit was in effect four months before Barack Obama took the oath of office. Accordingly, the first budget that can be blamed on our current president began in 2010 with the budgets running through and including including fiscal year 2013 standing as charges on the Obama account, even if a President Willard M. Romney takes over the office on January 20, 2013. http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickung...isenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/
Spending as %GDP ($6.59T) 1981 = 21.12% Spending as %GDP ($8.85T) 1989 = 20.22% Reagan cut spending as a percentage of GDP over his term, and GDP grew from 6.59T to 8.85T over that time period.
Yes Reagan DRASTICALLY increased spending THEN cut it near the end of his term as consequences of his spending and tax cuts for the rich tripled the debt
I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers - GDP stats weren't all the rage in Jefferson's time. But here are the numbers I derived from OMB's Historical Tables: Eisenhower II (FY58-61) Outlays as a Pct. of GDP: 17.66 Real GDP Growth Rate: 2.4% Kennedy-Johnson (FY62-65) Outlays as a Pct. of GDP: 17.67 Real GDP Growth Rate: 5.4% Carter (FY78-81) Outlays as a Pct. of GDP: 20.62 Real GDP Growth Rate: 3.0% Reagan I (FY82-85) Outlays as a Pct. of GDP: 22.26 Real GDP Growth Rate: 3.4% I thought using standard 4-year Presidential terms (ie, Eisenhower's second term, Johnson's FY65 Budget & Reagan's first term) would give a more accurate basis for comparison.
Rex Nutting, the international commentary editor for the financial website MarketWatch, published a column titled, "Obama spending binge never happened." Nutting’s column explored data on federal spending patterns during recent presidencies, concluding that -- contrary to the tax-and-spend stereotype of Democrats -- President Barack Obama has actually presided over the smallest increases in federal spending of any recent president. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...facebook-post-says-barack-obama-has-lowest-s/
