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David Stockman bombshell: How my Republican Party destroyed the American economy.

What do you think of this quote

  • Stockman is a moron

    Votes: 5 27.8%
  • Stockman is correct

    Votes: 10 55.6%
  • Stockman is a Republican traitor and a moron

    Votes: 1 5.6%
  • The Democrats are the root oause of deficits

    Votes: 5 27.8%
  • The Republicans are the root cause of deficits

    Votes: 4 22.2%
  • We need more honest politicians like Stockman

    Votes: 7 38.9%

  • Total voters
    18
  • Poll closed .

DaveFagan

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“debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.”

What are your thoughts on this quote?
 
My thoughts are very simple.... Both sides are equally to blame, and until both parties are willing to sit down and fix the errors in this system that were originally brought about by the administration of Abraham Lincoln, which have simply compounded for the last century and a half it makes no difference who the blame falls on. Until we return this nation's Government to its Constitutional Boundaries, we will never effect the changes necessary to fix any of the major issues we face.
 
This gentleman is, IMO, honorable.
Surely he has the right to express himself - no matter how large the "bombshell".
Hopefully he will set an example for others to follow.
Of course, I neither agree nor disagree with him, at this point in time.
Nor do I think highly of the voting selections, so, as usual, no vote.
 
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Links?
If this is true though, it may show signs of compromise and bi-partisanship in the US finally. It's a small step, and it may be an isolated case, but it certainly is a step. Admitting mistakes, taking responsibility, this is what not only the Republican Party must have, but also the Democrats
 
Links?
If this is true though, it may show signs of compromise and bi-partisanship in the US finally. It's a small step, and it may be an isolated case, but it certainly is a step. Admitting mistakes, taking responsibility, this is what not only the Republican Party must have, but also the Democrats

The link is under "Reply to thread" on my computer. This is interesting. The Republicans that I have heard have recently suffered collective amnesia as regards their old mantra "deficits don't matter" and that would be as recent as Dick "Dark" Cheney. This was an often repeated Republican axiom. What is the reason for the amnesia? Are we playing, "Let's blame it on the Democrats!"?
 
Sorry, I do not see a link to the story either. One can not comment based upon one sentence.
 
Three decades ago are right around the time when religious southern democrats took over the Republican party, so yes, in theory, the democrats are responsible. We don't have an actual conservative party in this country, we just have two extremes of the same party.
 
Three decades ago are right around the time when religious southern democrats took over the Republican party, so yes, in theory, the democrats are responsible. We don't have an actual conservative party in this country, we just have two extremes of the same party.
No matter
Children "blame".
Men solve problems, tell the truth.
I fear that the deficits must become greater if we are to solve the problems (infrastructure,education ...if these are as bad as some say they are).
To avoid greater deficits, the taxes must be increased....to where they were during the Clinton era..
Maybe we do have a manpower shortage.
 
No matter
Children "blame".
Men solve problems, tell the truth.
I fear that the deficits must become greater if we are to solve the problems (infrastructure,education ...if these are as bad as some say they are).
To avoid greater deficits, the taxes must be increased....to where they were during the Clinton era..
Maybe we do have a manpower shortage.

Ah yes, I love it when people get caught in a falsehood, they suddenly aren't interested in the reality, they point fingers the other way.
 
Sorry, I do not see a link to the story either. One can not comment based upon one sentence.

Didn't you read Dave's post above this one? The link is on his computer under the "reply to thread" button. You didn't think to look there?
 
Links?
If this is true though, it may show signs of compromise and bi-partisanship in the US finally. It's a small step, and it may be an isolated case, but it certainly is a step. Admitting mistakes, taking responsibility, this is what not only the Republican Party must have, but also the Democrats

It being DaveFagan, I'm definitely going to need a link to believe that the letter "a" is really the letter "a."
 
From the 2010 Op-Ed

More fundamentally, Mr. McConnell’s stand puts the lie to the Republican pretense that its new monetarist and supply-side doctrines are rooted in its traditional financial philosophy. Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts — in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses, too. But the new catechism, as practiced by Republican policymakers for decades now, has amounted to little more than money printing and deficit finance — vulgar Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes.

This approach has not simply made a mockery of traditional party ideals. It has also led to the serial financial bubbles and Wall Street depredations that have crippled our economy. More specifically, the new policy doctrines have caused four great deformations of the national economy, and modern Republicans have turned a blind eye to each one.

The first of these started when the Nixon administration defaulted on American obligations under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement to balance our accounts with the world. Now, since we have lived beyond our means as a nation for nearly 40 years, our cumulative current-account deficit — the combined shortfall on our trade in goods, services and income — has reached nearly $8 trillion. That’s borrowed prosperity on an epic scale.

The second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40 percent of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970. This debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.

The third ominous change in the American economy has been the vast, unproductive expansion of our financial sector. Here, Republicans have been oblivious to the grave danger of flooding financial markets with freely printed money and, at the same time, removing traditional restrictions on leverage and speculation. As a result, the combined assets of conventional banks and the so-called shadow banking system (including investment banks and finance companies) grew from a mere $500 billion in 1970 to $30 trillion by September 2008.

The fourth destructive change has been the hollowing out of the larger American economy. Having lived beyond our means for decades by borrowing heavily from abroad, we have steadily sent jobs and production offshore. In the past decade, the number of high-value jobs in goods production and in service categories like trade, transportation, information technology and the professions has shrunk by 12 percent, to 68 million from 77 million. The only reason we have not experienced a severe reduction in nonfarm payrolls since 2000 is that there has been a gain in low-paying, often part-time positions in places like bars, hotels and nursing homes.​
 
I'm no economist, but I spent much of my adult life in public finanace. I was the finance director for a SoCalif city when, in the 80's, deregulations began to creep over economic safeguards, even allowing public entities, like states, cities, towns, to invest taxpayer money in junk bonds. These deregulations led to the corporate corruption of the Enrons, etc., and the unethical banking procedures and mortgage bundling that is crushing the banking industry. Then the USA charitably signed on to NAFTA, which guaran-damn-teed that America's jobforce would be cut by millions as corporations leaped borders for cheap labor and tax incentives.

Still, America had a balanced budget, on paper, in 2000 (of course, social security was used as a slush fund to balance it, but still). What has changed in the past decade is the out-of-control spending on two decades-old wars, skyrocketing political pork and foreign aid, during the same years that the prior deregulations, etc., were coming full circle, resulting in the global economic instability we see now. It was predictable to anyone with an average I.Q. and a calculator that this would happen. If there's a way out of it without first suffering complete economic collapse, I don't see it.

This is only a portion of what I believe has brought us from prosperous 1980's to the verge of fiscal collapse. Everyone will have different answers, but since I predicted in the late 1980's that deregulation measures would lead to junk investments and loss of taypayer principle... and it has... and in the mid-1990's that NAFTA would close down American manufacturing operations and result in the loss of millions of jobs... and it has... I believe I'm right! :)
 
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I could have used a ‘none of the above’ choice. At the top, democrat/republican it makes no difference, they are both at fault.
 
“debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.”

What are your thoughts on this quote?

People obviously forget that GOP presidents have approved more spending in the last 30 years than have the Democrat presidents.
 
FYI, I voted for four of them:

1) Stockman is correct
2) The Democrats are the root oause of deficits
3) The Republicans are the root cause of deficits
4) We need more honest politicians like him
 
People obviously forget that GOP presidents have approved more spending in the last 30 years than have the Democrat presidents.

Makes sense since we've had 3 Republican presidents and 1.5 Democrat presidents.
 
Makes sense since we've had 3 Republican presidents and 1.5 Democrat presidents.

One of life's lessons! Mistakes make good teachers! :sun
 
That's right, Obama has finished teaching us yet. :roll:

Obama hasn't finished cleaning up the mess from the last GOP president yet. :sun
 
Obama hasn't finished cleaning up the mess from the last GOP president yet. :sun


HAHAHAHAHAHA. Another one of these guys. How long is it gonna be Bush's fault to you people.

You know what? I think Bush spent his 8 years trying to clean up Clinton's crap.
 
HAHAHAHAHAHA. Another one of these guys. How long is it gonna be Bush's fault to you people.

You know what? I think Bush spent his 8 years trying to clean up Clinton's crap.

Clinton left Bush a budget surplus, high employment and no wars. Bush left Obama, the largest budget deficit in history, the biggest recession since the great depression, and two wars that are nearing the cost of World War II, and inadequate revenues to pay for them thanks to the Bush tax cuts.
 
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