If one believes that we need no inheritance taxes and that all of private wealth can be passed on from generation to generation, then one believes in the philosophy of entrenched wealth espoused by George Bush II. Many would say that is the price we pay for freedom, and this incentive drives America to greatness. On the other hand, this great wealth has had a tendency to also benefit the upper middle class that serves it, and has by default driven a large wedge between the upper and lower middle classes. This in the long run has weakened the purchasing power of most Americans who have descended into that lower middle class or below. Wherein we had a diamond shaped economic profile we now have an hour glass shaped one. In other words, the large middle class has now shrunk.

The conservatives have had ample opportunity to fight the costs of government, the so-called excesses of the unions (their numbers have been shrinking for decades) the decline of the dollar, the cost of civil service, the decline of manufacturing, the twin foreign and domestic deficits, the foreign adventurism in Iraq, failure to eradicate the Taliban in Afghanistan over seven years, the decline in values, the rise in the illegal immigration population, the cost of the military, which much of it is geared to fight the former Soviet Union, the decline of our schools, and the moribund nature of our teetering healthcare system. I say, where have they succeeded? We know there are bleeding heart liberals in our midst, we know that there are socialists, we know, that we have one-worlders, we know we have people who support de-standardization and have many other proclivities. But how come the right supports censorship? How come the right has blurred the “Establishment Clause/” How come the right tolerates flat-earth thinking? (8% of the country thinks that the moon landing was staged in La La Land. Do you think those folks are pointy-headed liberals?) How come the right believes in UFO’s and government conspiracies? How come the right doesn’t believe in sex-education, condoms, or birth control and wants that all taught by brain-dead parents? The right doesn’t seem to believe that women have the right to control their own bodies, even when they are victims of rape, incest or are captives of cults.

So now that leaves us with the legacy of Reagan and the two Bush twins. They have brought us deficits, world-wide disdain, a weakened economy, an energy vulnerable land, an education system in decline, a healthcare system about to topple, a divided people, a rise in flat-earth and flat-tax thinking, and unending wars. But what have they supported? They haven’t been for the environment, they opposed Social Security, Medicare, Wages and Hours, they opposed civil rights, women’s rights, the separation of church and state, affirmative action, the right to organize (the Wagner Act) and they have opposed every type of market regulation since the Securities Acts of 1933, 1934 and 1940 and they have fought intellectual freedom at every step. They opposed immigration in the 1930’s and looked the other way in the 1990’s to the cheap influx of illegals to flood the labor market for the big hospitals, big farms, big gardeners, Wal-Mart and big restaurant chains.

What do they (Conservatives) really stand for? I’d say and I believe that they are the shills for the super rich and they have used the discontented trailer park trash to win elections for them on hot-button social issues so they can continue to grab the economic “goodies.” Keep listening to the Limbaugh’s, Hannity’s, O’Reilly’s, Beck’s Coulter’s and others. They are making the zillions and laughing al the way to the bank!

Richard J. Garfunkel
Host of The Advocates
WVOX Radio 1460 in NY
http://www.wvox.com

The Republicans controlled the U.S. Senate from 1981-87 and conservatives controlled the House from 1981-83 (that’s how Reagan’s tax cuts got passed). And while we can blame both Democrats and Republicans in Congresss for being druken sailors, the fact also is Reagan’s budgets pretty much after 1981 stopped trying to abolish federal agencies and starting increasing their budgets. Thus the Dept. of Education went from being on a hit list to getting a 28 percent increase from 1981 to 1989.

You’re right that the Constitution says the the government should proivde for a common defense but also says something about “promoting the general welfare” and “domestic tranquility” too. How one interperts that is another topic for debate. But at least during Reagan’s term it meant more money for veterans, farmers, NASA, the Small Business Administration, and any group of constituents that favored Republicans. It meant more money for home mortgages as well. The problem with the defense build up of the 1980s, even if it was necessary and it was considering the state of the armed forces at that time and the Cold War, was that it led to unrestrained spending elsewhere to the point where economic growth alone could not pay all the bills.

Read B. Goldwater ‘Conscience of a Conservative’

Read F Meyer. In Defence of Freedom’

Write Republican Party Platform Accordingly.

Win Political Office based on above. Simple really.

Intellectual Honesty combined with Political Will.

Subject: RE: Ronald Reagan’s Secret Life

Ronald reagan has the most fraudulent reputation of any that has ever served in public office. He was certainly genial, a decent guy, a 3rd rate actor that had his career revived by the advice by his new father-in-law, Dr, Davis (a supporter the John Birch Society) “Go where the money is!” In other words flack for 20 Mule Team Borax and GE. This confused guy even voted for FDR four times by his own admission. He learned that it was “good business” to give up a lifetime of supposed ideals. He was a quick study, but basically a “dope” who was lost without a script. One day Jack Benny went into a theater where his “rival” Fred Allen was doing a remote for his radio program. Allen was giving out cheap Depression glass plates to the audience. All of a sudden Benny stood up and demanded a plate. Allen seeing the opportunity to score on his rival, said, “There is Jack Benny, one of the richest men in America trying to huckster a plate from you people.” Allen kept up the barraging harangue and finally the frustrated Benny yelled out, “You wouldn’t say that if my writers were here!” Well that fits Reagan to a tee. He even thought that the co2 from a tree was equivalent to a car’s emissions. He was a “stiff” built up by his handlers. His last term was a disaster, and to cap it off during the Poindexter and McFarlane Trials he said under oath over 400 times that he did not remember! With a history of Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and Nixon I can understand easily that the “flat-earth” Luddites of the new GOP love to worship the memory of the “Gipper” whose understanding of the problems of this country matched his inability to answer a question “off the cuff.” Maybe that’s why he ran out after every press conference yelling over his shoulder. They couldn’t wait to get him away.

June 14, 2004

Reagan and the real fall of the Soviet Union

In the wake of the public mourning of Ronald Reagan, our 40th President of the United States, his supporters made certain claims. One of these claims was that he was responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union. As an avid student of history and a witness to those events I must beg to disagree. The process that led to its welcomed collapse was in the works long before he was elected. In a sense it was a result of the confluence of disparate events and circumstances. In 1982 after 13 years of litigation against ATT by the Justice Department, the case was settled, and ATT agreed to give up their 22 Bell Systems and their subsequent monopoly over technology. This “breakup” began a “golden age” of communication that eventually resulted in fax machines, cable television, cell phones and the Internet. Meanwhile in Poland, after 2 months of labor turmoil at the Lenin Shipyards, Gdansk, in 1980 that had paralyzed the country, the Polish government gave into the demands of the workers. This of course was before Ronald Reagan was elected. Over the next few years, Poland, in need for “hard” foreign currency was starting to invite Polish-American retirees from the steel industry to come back and live in Poland. With their large union pensions they were able to buy “dachas”, or country houses and live like princes. This reality was not lost on Walesa, who saw his workers starving, as opposed to American steel workers who were “rich” and now “landed gentry.”

Others soon became aware of this reality and eventually through the lowering of phone rates, and the development of the fax machines, etc, communication between citizens of the Eastern Bloc and the West opened up. Hungary started to liberalize in 1989 and a flow of East German citizens started to circumvent the Berlin Wall as they traveled through Hungary to West Germany. So the proverbial “flood-gate” was opened, and it could not be shut. By 1991 the old Warsaw Pact countries had removed their Communist bosses and Soviet troops finally went home. Without their client states, the Soviet system was finally exposed as the economic “basket case” it was, and they shut down the whole bankrupt operation. All in all, his real credit should be for the following; the useless and expensive 600 ship navy, the invasion of tiny Grenada, SDI, the Strategic Defense Imitative (Star Wars), Iran-Contra scandal, the death of 240+ Marines in Beirut, the stock market collapse of 1987, and the tripling of the National Debt, vetoing sanctions against South Africa, the speech at the SS cemetery in Bitburg, backing military dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, and the Philippines, arming Sadaam Hussein, voodoo economics (George Bush’s phrase), inaction against the AIDS epidemic, the nearly 200 members of his administration that faced indictment and prosecution, his appointment of Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court, the S & L scandal that stuck the taxpayers with a bill approaching a trillion dollars, his relentless attacks on affirmative action, his deregulation of broadcasting gave rise to today’s monopolistic media industry, and a host of other wonderful accomplishments. Ronald Reagan got the last laugh in the end. He is still fooling the impotent media with his “teflon” image that was carefully crafted by his handlers, apologists and sycophants.

So we have seen what has happened. The GOP/Right has encouraged the lowering of taxes, the conglomeration of industry, the exporting of jobs overseas, the deregulation of industry, and the accumulation of greater money in fewer hands. Now, as in 1929, less people own more of America! In the midst of this incredible increase in executive compensation, Ronald Reagan’s administration lowered the highest tax brackets by more than 60% from 71% to 28% in 1986, while raising the bottom tax rate from 11 to 15%. In reality the Reagan Administration created two tax brackets. The poorest earners paid up to 15% and multi-millionaires paid a little more than double? Did this increase revenue to the Treasury? No! No wonder we experienced record deficits. Did it increase wealth to the wealthiest? Yes! Recent articles have debunked the “urban myth” promulgated by the flat-taxer’s and other anti-tax groups that tax cuts increase revenues. In fact, tax cuts without expense reductions create greater deficits. With that in mind, the Reagan years offered some of the biggest deficits, (tripling the National Debt), continued high unemployment, averaging over 7% in his tenure, and great private sector increases in wealth.
On the March 17, 2006, broadcast of the PBS’ The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, New York Times columnist David Brooks falsely claimed that “in the Reagan years, unemployment went from 13 percent to 5 percent.”

In fact, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 1981, Ronald Reagan’s first year in office, the U.S. average unemployment rate stood at 7.6 percent. During Reagan’s presidency, it reached a high of 9.7 percent, and had declined to a level of 5.5 percent when Reagan left office. The rate from when Reagan entered office through his last year declined by 2.1 points, far less than the eight-point drop for which Brooks credited Reagan. (Besides that obvious reality in November of 1981, ten months into the Reagan Administration, unemployment had risen to 8.5% and continued to rise to almost 10% through February of 1983.)
From the March 17 broadcast of The News Hour with Jim Lehrer:

BROOKS: I disagree a little. I think most people who call themselves independent are really partisan. They’re just lying.
And — and I think partisanship — one of the things political science shows is that partisan shapes the reality you choose to see. People choose the reality that — that flatters their partisanship. For example, in the Reagan years, unemployment went from 13 percent to 5 percent. If you asked Democrats, at the end of that, did unemployment go up or down under Reagan, 60 percent said it went up. Republicans said down. You choose the reality you want to see. And, then, the Clinton years, when you had the reverse, this time, it was the Republicans’ turn to be more pessimistic and wrong. People choose the reality that flatters themselves.
c/o Media Matter for America- http://mediamatters.org/items/200603210007

Along with Reagan’s tax cuts for the rich, we experienced the Stock Market crash of 1987, the Savings & Loan debacle and bailout for almost one trillion dollars, and the deregulation of broadcasting, which has led to the consolidation of ownership regarding thousands of previously independent stations.
1.
What we have seen in this country has been an explosion in private wealth and a crying need for public revenues. This drought in public revenues has resulted in an aging infrastructure, which includes; poor and deteriorating bridges and roads, an antiquated electric grid system, weak, porous and inadequate levee systems, un-dredged harbors and rivers, a deteriorating reservoir system and over-crowded dangerous airports. In the Clinton Years, taxes on the wealthiest bracket went up to 39.6%, three extra brackets were created, there were tax cuts for the middle class, surpluses ensued, and over 20 million jobs were created. A benefit of that expansion of the work force, especially in the center cities, resulted in a dramatic lowering of crime in the period from 1993 through 2000. (Another urban myth was that Rudy Giuliani’s police tactics alone lowered crime in NYC. What is conveniently forgotten was that crime dropped dramatically in urban centers throughout America without Giuliani’s help!)

Of course, one immediate result is that the “entitlements;” Social Security and Medicare are under attack. Certainly they are threatened by the demographics facing us. We have a large “baby-boom” population (64-74 millions) that is aging. This population emerged from parents that had 2.6 children per family. It is now being replaced by a generation that is composed of 2.1 children per family. Generally speaking this smaller population is not as wealthy and earns less in the service sector than its parents, the baby-boomers, earned in the manufacturing sector! Is the answer less taxes for this wealthiest of classes? It was said that to tax these people at previous levels would only bring in 4% more! Well 4%, if that is correct, will bring in $40 billion at least. Also, why is $75 billion being used from the Social Security Trust Fund to be used to help balance the budget and defray more deficits? These same antagonists of Social Security say it is “broke” and therefore people like John McCain and his leader, President Bush, have called for its partial or complete privatization. This would be another trillion dollar gift to our Wall Street “friends.” Conveniently they have forgotten that the Social Security system runs surpluses and that since Nixon’s time over $2 trillion has been borrowed from this Fund to pay for trinkets like Star Wars space missile defense systems, the 600 ship navy, and an all-volunteer army. I am sure that figure of $40 billion is probably incredibly low. I have also noticed that a recent report has stated that the IRS has been lax regarding the issue of corporate taxation. In fact, US Corporations are not paying their fair share, and many have been running to offshore tax shelters for years, while they drape themselves in patriotism! The case of Stanley Tool recently comes to mind! So with corporate taxes at all-time lows (post WWII) and the capital gains tax at 15%, and the highest marginal rate at 35%, one can readily see why we have a $500+ billion deficit that is growing. Should we continue down this path until we are broke?

By the way the myth regarding unemployment: Courtesy the United States Bureau of Statistics
Since 1928 there have been 13 presidents, 7 Republicans (Hoover, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush Sr, and Bush Jr) and 6 Democrats (FDR, Truman, JFK, Johnson, Carter and Clinton).
Six of the seven Republican Presidents had unemployment increase while in office. Ronald Reagan is the only Republican President since 1928 to leave office with a lower unemployment rate.
All six Democratic Presidents had unemployment decrease or stay the same while in office. The worst Democratic performance was Jimmy Carter, who had the same unemployment rate when he left office as when he entered.
Viewing the President’s 4 year term gives an even more pronounced effect.
Of the Republican President’s 9 terms, unemployment has increased in 7 of the 9 terms.
Of the Democratic President’s 10 terms, the unemployment rate never increased.
Here is the same list, sorted by decrease in the unemployment rate.

Civilian Unemployment Rate, U.S. Department of Labor: Bureau of Labor Statistics
period start end chng President Party
Jan 1993 Jan 1997 7.3 5.3 -2.0 Clinton I Democrat
Jan 1985 Jan 1989 7.3 5.4 -1.9 Reagan II Republican
Jan 1961 Jan 1965 6.6 4.9 -1.7 JFK/Johnson Democrat
Jan 1965 Jan 1969 4.9 3.4 -1.5 Johnson Democrat
Jan 1949 Jan 1953 4.3 2.9 -1.4 Truman Democrat
Jan 1997 Jan 2001 5.3 4.2 -1.1 Clinton II Democrat
Jan 1981 Jan 1985 7.5 7.3 -0.2 Reagan I Republican
Jan 1977 Jan 1981 7.5 7.5 0.0 Carter Democrat
Jan 2005 Aug 2008 5.2 6.1 +0.9 Bush, GW II Republican
Jan 2001 Jan 2005 4.2 5.2 +1.0 Bush, GW I Republican
Jan 1953 Jan 1957 2.9 4.2 +1.3 Eisenhower I Republican
Jan 1969 Jan 1973 3.4 4.9 +1.5 Nixon Republican
Jan 1989 Jan 1993 5.4 7.3 +1.9 Bush, GHW Republican
Jan 1957 Jan 1961 4.2 6.6 +2.4 Eisenhower II Republican
Jan 1973 Jan 1977 4.9 7.5 +2.6 Nixon/Ford Republican

By James K. Galbraith
June 8, 2004

One cannot begrudge Ronald Reagan’s personal admirers their moment of eulogy. And particularly not in view of the man’s wise embrace of Mikhail Gorbachev late in his term, his gallant departure into Alzheimer’s 10 years ago, and Nancy Reagan’s noble advocacy since then of government support for stem-cell research. There were moments beyond politics when those of us who opposed Reagan the most could, and did, tip our hats to him.

But let’s talk economics. It is not too early to contradict those who would elevate Reagan above Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, or even Bill Clinton, on this score. Yes, Reagan did change the course of history. But his economic legacy was mainly destructive, and especially so for the world’s poor and our own working class.
Among postwar administrations, who had the best record on economic growth? The answer is Kennedy-Johnson (49 percent over eight years), followed by Clinton (34 percent), followed by Reagan (32 percent). Among postwar two-term presidencies, Reagan beats out only Eisenhower (21 percent) and Nixon-Ford (24 percent). Call him the best of the Republicans, if you want.

The unemployment rate stood at 6.6 percent when Kennedy took office and at 3.4 percent when Johnson left it. The average over their eight years was 4.8 percent. When Clinton came in, unemployment was at 7.4 percent; it averaged 5.2 percent during his two terms and fell to 3.9 percent by the end. And for Reagan? Unemployment stood at 7.5 percent at his inauguration, and it averaged that same 7.5 percent during his entire eight years. The jobless rate was 5.4 percent when Reagan left office. Inflation did come down — from just over 10 percent in the oil crisis year of 1980 to just over 3 percent in 1983. But at whose expense? Here the correct contrast is with FDR, who controlled inflation while doubling output over four years in World War II. In the process, Roosevelt leveled the pay distribution and created the modern American middle class. Reagan’s disinflation came from unemployment over 10 percent, from his attack on unions, and from high interest rates, which drove up the dollar and cheapened imports. Those measures bankrupted much of the manufacturing belt. They damaged the middle class. And they created a vast trade imbalance and a rising external debt whose consequences haunt us still. Precisely what Roosevelt built, in other words, Reagan did much to destroy.
Mythmaking especially surrounds Reagan’s economic ideas, where memory blurs reality into romance. In truth Reagan’s economic team was a shotgun marriage between ideologues, monetarists and supply-siders who couldn’t stand one another. There was even a good-humored (though conservative) Keynesian mixed in — Murray Weidenbaum, the first chairman of Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors.
I remember Murray sidling over to me at a meeting of a deplorable group called the Gold Commission — an official assembly of nut cases, to be blunt about it — in the Cash Room of Donald Regan’s Treasury Department, on the day in 1982 when the CEA’s first “Economic Report of the President” for Reagan’s presidency was published.
American Economist- The son of renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith and of Catherine (Kitty) Atwater Galbraith, he earned his BA from Harvard in 1974 and Ph.D from Yale in 1981, both in economics. From 1974 to 1975, Galbraith studied at King’s College, Cambridge.
In conclusion, whether one is a Democrat, Republican or an independent, or liberal or conservative, the one reality which should be most apparent to all is that we are way too much in debt. Our personal, corporate and government borrowing is out of control. Our personal savings rate is non-existent. Our economic society has been driven by debt, and the “greater fool” theory which postulates that there is always a greater fool out there who will pay a premium for what we own. We are running huge budgetary deficits, we are fighting wars that we are not paying for, and we owe over $11 trillion to ourselves and foreign countries. We are buying cheap imported goods from Wal-Mart, who once prided itself on only “selling American!” They have becomes the world’s greatest retailer and they are a conduit for our dollars to go straight to China. We are purchasing $700 billion on foreign oil, and much of it is going to regimes that do not like us and some of that money is going to finance militants and terrorists that are threatening our very existence. What we need is honest and strong leadership. And we need that leadership now! Our society will not long exist with an attitude of business as usual, and that we are the best because we are Americans. As Lincoln stated in his famous speech in Springfield, Illinois in June of 1858, “A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand!” He was talking about slavery, and today we have to be talking about economic slavery. It is the issue of the great economic and social divide that has arisen in our country and has the potential of ripping us apart.

I often quote FDR who said the following, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” FDR, the Second Inaugural Speech, January 20, 1937

“The immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold blooded and the sins of the warmhearted in different scales. Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in the spirit of charity than the constant omissions of a government frozen in the idea of its own indifference.” FDR, from remarks he made in 1936.

In the spirit of those remarks we have to pull together for the commonweal and address the fissures that are renting our nation state apart. This means sacrifice and cooperation. Let us hope it begins in January.

If you’re actually interested limiting the scope of the welfare/warfare state, then I don’t what possibly lessons you could learn from Jimmy Carter and George McGovern. Stalin, by the way, outlawed abortion and liquidated much of the Army’s general staff. Does this make him a conservative advocate of limited government?