Stephen Eisel wrote:then there's the biggest gorilla in the room: Bush-Cheney's years of drunk sailor style spending. Returning to traditional american progressive income taxes will make a small dent in the massive debt he and his father and reagan ran up. You can all nitpick which programs to cut once traditional progressive income taxes are restored.
Yep, the national debt went up 189% during Regan's 8 years and 63% during Bush's 8 years. We won the cold war thanks to Ron and Al Qaeda is now on the ropes thanks to Bush.. During the Carter and Clinton admins the National Debt only went up by 42% and 36%... Clinton was the beneficiary of the first internet boom but nearly castrated our military. He also did not spend a dime to stop terrorism so Bush had to pick up that tab. Carter gave us 28% interest rates and nearly cost us the Cold War...
the federal reserve and the free market gave us 28 percent interest rates. Reagan and Greenspan struck upon the idea that the Fed could perpetually lower the interest rates. and that we could perpetually borrow enormous quantities of money from europe and japan(and later China) at extremely low interest rates. that was quite an innovation. (i've heard it is how donald trump stays in business)
Clinton didn't do much to the military. It was nearly the same size at the end of his presidency as at the beginning, which is no small feat considering the cold war was over and the first Gulf War was already over before he took office. Military deterrence could not have prevented 9/11: the terrorists were from our allies, and they attacked using nothing our military guards against.
When terrorists killed 241 American servicemen in Beirut in 1983 Reagan and his government did not invade and occupy Lebanon. A few retaliatory strikes took place, maybe a few secret clandestine missions. but no invasion and occupation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beiru ... ks_bombing
I suspect this is because most Americans didn't have cable television news back then. So the number of Americans who were giant tools was much lower.
The historical evidence is that Americas GDP growth was much higher during periods of higher progressive income taxes, corporate taxes, and corporate gains taxes. household personal savings rates were also higher, for the rich and the poor. Corporate investment rates of revenue in capital was also at a higher rate. it was also much higher during the high tariff years. That is another reason why todays republicans and neo-cons campaign on lies and lying slogans. Maybe "lies" is too harsh a word. They campaign on scores of "C-" and "F" in history.
Reagan's military buildup didn't cause the Soviet Collapse. Most Soviet Leaders and citizens were not unintelligent. They knew how much the Soviet Union sucked. But there was no career security in dissidence. There was little career advancement in dissidence. The career opportunities were in patriotism and opposing America. The Soviet Union was not bound by fiscal realities or accounting realities: as a command economy they had no fiscal limitations. They may have had enormous inefficiency, but they had no fiscal limitations. They could have kept going indefinitely. They gave up when they realized there probably wouldn't be a war with America anyways. They had even had overlapping interests with the U.S. in helping saddam hussein counter Iran. At the same time the U.S. was supplying the taliban freedom fighters with weapons against the U.S.S.R. Yet in personal meetings Reagan was conciliatory with the Soviets.
Reagans training and experience as a hollywood star prepared him for stepping into the spotlight with good soundbytes when opportunities were there.
in the 80s the Soviets were hung up in Afghanistan. Today America is hung up in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is pretty expensive.
Also, Al Queda isn't on the run. folks from all over west asia are clamoring to the fight. just like frontiersmen raced to the Alamo when Mexico tried to keep Texas. its what many red blooded men are into.
hate the game not the playa 
