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Was Reagan a fiscal/small government conservative?

Was Reagan a fiscal-small government conservative?


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Or if it kills some folks. 'Specially brown folks.

Don't get carried away. The military budget under Reagan was intended to decrease the likelihood of having to kill something. And the enemy where caucasian.
 
Don't get carried away. The military budget under Reagan was intended to decrease the likelihood of having to kill something. And the enemy where caucasian.

I think he means the Reagan administration's direct involvement in the crack epidemic of the 1980s(via the Iran-Contra affair) while also conducting Nancy Reagan's "Just say no" anti-drug campaign.
 
So you change your statement. Government by your definition didn't go up because it's temporary, never mind that government did actually increase under Reagan. Removing your cop out, you are wrong.



Reasonable? Seriously? Military spending is still domestic in how the dollars flow. And Reagan's military spending was massive.



You posted the charts I posted....and yet you say that.

That makes little sense. Total discretionary dropped under Bush and Clinton proving you again wrong. How can you claim no other president did that when you posted charts showing other presidents after him did that?



I smell a cult of Reagan follower here.

And yet you say that someone can be a fiscal conservative while also supporting a massive stimulus spending bill. Saying that they can be a fiscal conservative while increasing military spending isn't much of a stretch from that.
 
No. He temporarily increased defense spending by a lot as part of his cold war strategy, but he cut domestic spending more than any other president; in fact, he's the only one to do so in the last 45 years.

Not really. He didn't increase defense spending at all. At the end of his period, he spend the same amount as he did when he took the office. From 6 to 6%.
Government Spending Chart in United States 1981-1989 - Federal State Local

His total spending went from 33.5% to 35%. Mostly due to the interest on the debt he obtained in his period.
Government Spending Chart in United States 1981-1989 - Federal State Local

Bill Clinton However decreased spending from 36.5% to 33.5 and was able to balance the budget. Sadly enough, the best fiscal conservative has been Bill Clinton.Government Spending Chart in United States 1993-2001 - Federal State Local
 
Not really. He didn't increase defense spending at all. At the end of his period, he spend the same amount as he did when he took the office. From 6 to 6%.

Which is why I pointed out the temporary nature of his military spending. However, he did definitely increase it, and by not an insignificant amount. It just went up before it went back down.
 
Bill Clinton However decreased spending from 36.5% to 33.5 and was able to balance the budget. Sadly enough, the best fiscal conservative has been Bill Clinton.Government Spending Chart in United States 1993-2001 - Federal State Local

There are many republicans who have seizures when you tell them that. They will twist themselves into knots trying to deny it. So to be fair it should be pointed out that Clinton had a GOP controlled Congress for most of his Presidency. And while Presidents have a lot of influence over spending, only Congress can tax and only Congress can spend.
 
And yet you say that someone can be a fiscal conservative while also supporting a massive stimulus spending bill.

If the spending is designed to save the country from utter and total collapse yes. Hard to conserve when there's nothing left.

Saying that they can be a fiscal conservative while increasing military spending isn't much of a stretch from that.

Except that you're still wrong about no other president after him cutting discretionary spending.
 
Which compared to mandatory and defense discretionary is relatively small. Big deal. :spin:

Reagan expanded the government, didn't cut discretionary and left us with at the time, huge debt obligations.

Which according to you, doesn't mean he isn't a fiscal conservative, since you assert that a fiscal conservative can still spend on things they deem crucial (in this case, national defense).
 
Which according to you, doesn't mean he isn't a fiscal conservative, since you assert that a fiscal conservative can still spend on things they deem crucial (in this case, national defense).

Not to the point you cause government to explode and saddle the next generation with huge amounts of debt. Did we need to build up to the level Reagan had us? No. Did we need to leverage our piggy banks to do it? No. By the early 70s, we had superiority over the Soviets in every way except numbers.

Frankly, aside from Bush I and Clinton, we haven't had a fiscally conservative president since Eisenhower.
 
Not to the point you cause government to explode and saddle the next generation with huge amounts of debt.

Which is what the stimulus did much moreso than Reagan's military spending. You are using a double-standard here.


Did we need to build up to the level Reagan had us? No. Did we need to leverage our piggy banks to do it? No. By the early 70s, we had superiority over the Soviets in every way except numbers.

In other words, if you think it's necessary, then you can do it and still be a fiscal conservative, but if you personally don't deem it necessary, then no fiscal conservative can do it.
 
Easy question. Yes or no. and Explain why.

Yes, he was a fiscal/small government conservative.

"In 1981 Ronald Reagan entered the White House and immediately implemented a dramatic new economic policy agenda for the country that was dubbed "Reaganomics." [5]Reaganomics consisted of four key elements to reverse the high-inflation, slow-growth economic record of the 1970s: (1) a restrictive monetary policy designed to stabilize the value of the dollar and end runaway inflation; (2) a 25 percent across-the-board tax cut enacted (The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981) designed to spur savings, investment, work, and economic efficiency; (3) a promise to balance the budget through domestic spending restraint; and (4) an agenda to roll back government regulation."
Supply-Side Tax Cuts and the Truth about the Reagan Economic Record | William A. Niskanen and Stephen Moore | Cato Institute: Policy Analysis
 
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I think he means the Reagan administration's direct involvement in the crack epidemic of the 1980s(via the Iran-Contra affair) while also conducting Nancy Reagan's "Just say no" anti-drug campaign.

Maybe you should post something about that in the conspiracy theories part of the forum.
 
Maybe you should post something about that in the conspiracy theories part of the forum.

Maybe you should pick up a history book?

CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy

As noted above, the Mercury News series was not only a story about the United States government and crack cocaine. It also revisited allegations concerning the Contras and drug trafficking that has been reported upon and investigated for many years. In 1987, the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations began an investigation focusing on allegations received by the subcommittee chairman, Senator John Kerry, concerning illegal gun-running and narcotics trafficking associated with the Contras. A two-year investigation produced a 1,166-page report in 1989 analyzing the involvement of Contra groups and supporters in drug trafficking, and the role of United States government officials in these activities. Allegations of cocaine trafficking by Contras also arose during the investigation conducted by Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh into the Iran-Contra affair. Drug trafficking allegations, however, were not the focus of that inquiry and the Walsh report included no findings on these allegations.

The issue of drug trafficking by the Nicaraguan Contras has also been the subject of books: e.g., On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency, by Mark Hertsgaard, 1989; Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, by Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall, 1991. It was also reported upon in the news media. Following the December 1985 piece mentioned above from the Associated Press, the San Francisco Examiner ran stories in 1986 about Norwin Meneses, Carlos Cabezas (an individual with links to Contra organizations who was convicted in the mid-1980s of drug charges), and drug trafficking by the Contras.

It is undisputed that individuals like Meneses and Blandon, who had ties to the Contras or were Contra sympathizers, were convicted of drug trafficking, either in the United States or Central America. There is also undeniable evidence that certain groups associated with the Contras engaged in drug trafficking. The pervasiveness of such activities within the Contra movement and the United States government's knowledge of those activities, however, are still the subject of debate, and it is beyond the scope of the OIG's investigation, which we describe below. Yet it is noteworthy that, as interesting as the story of Contras and illicit drug deals may be, it was not the catalyst for the public's or the media's interest in the Dark Alliance series. Investigations into the alleged connection between Contras and cocaine dealing were conducted and articles were printed in the late 1980s, at a time when interest in the Iran-Contra story was cresting. Neither those investigations nor the published articles tracking the allegations sparked a firestorm of outrage comparable to that created by the Dark Alliance series. The furor over the Mercury News series was driven by the allegations of the government's complicity in cocaine deals within black communities. If the Dark Alliance series had been limited to reporting on Contras, it seems unlikely that the groundswell of press and public attention would have occurred.

U.S. Concedes Contras Linked to Drugs said:
On April 17, 1986, the Reagan Administration released a three page report acknowledging that there were some Contra-cocaine connections in 1984 and 1985, arguing that these connections occurred at a time when the rebels were "particularly hard pressed for financial support" because U.S. aid had been cut off. The report admitted that "We have evidence of a limited number of incidents in which known drug traffickers have tried to establish connections with Nicaraguan resistance groups." The report tried to downplay the drug activity, claiming that it took place "without the authorization of resistance leaders."[6]

Nicaraguan Contras and Cocaine

While the contra/drug question was not the primary focus of the investigation, the Subcommittee uncovered considerable evidence relating to the Contra network which substantiated many of the initial allegations laid out before the Committee in the Spring of 1986. On the basis of this evidence, it is clear that individuals who provided support for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking, the supply network of the Contras was used by drug trafficking organizations, and elements of the Contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers. In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. government had information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter.
 
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Yes, he was a fiscal/small government conservative.

"In 1981 Ronald Reagan entered the White House and immediately implemented a dramatic new economic policy agenda for the country that was dubbed "Reaganomics." [5]Reaganomics consisted of four key elements to reverse the high-inflation, slow-growth economic record of the 1970s: (1) a restrictive monetary policy designed to stabilize the value of the dollar and end runaway inflation; (2)a 25 percent across-the-board tax cut enacted (The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981) designed to spur savings, investment, work, and economic efficiency; (3) a promise to balance the budget through domestic spending restraint; and (4) an agenda to roll back government regulation."
Supply-Side Tax Cuts and the Truth about the Reagan Economic Record | William A. Niskanen and Stephen Moore | Cato Institute: Policy Analysis

Well if the Cato institute says so.
 
That's not correct. You're looking at % of GDP.

U.S. Military Spending, 1946–2009 — Infoplease.com

From '81 to '89, military spending increased quite largely. From $317.4 billion to $427.7 billion.
You don't count spending like that, because then everyone spends more and no one expets them to spend less in nominal terms. We do have inflation, and we do have wage and cost increases. You must remember that taxes follow the GDP.

However, what's important is if the president use less as a percentage of GDP. However, he wasn't a fiscal conservative, because he increased spending from 33.5% to 35%.

My feeling is that Presidents don't have that much power, and therfore can't influence Congress that much. If the congress want to spend, they will spend. You must remember that congressmen want the best for their state only, so they can get reelected. Hence, they add a lof of wasteful spending into other bills. This is not only stpid stuff, but it could be an extra treatment in Washington DC.
 
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Cato is a good source and far from being right wing.

They just happen to be a Libertarian think tank.

That is all ridiculous.

And yet the Reagan administration conceded connections between the CIA and drug dealers in Nicaragua. ;)
 
They just happen to be a Libertarian think tank.



And yet the Reagan administration conceded connections between the CIA and drug dealers in Nicaragua. ;)

Do you have a link to that "administration conceded" statement you made?
 
Massive deficits. In fact, he was the model Keynesian!
 
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