Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General "Reagan Principles"

Yesterday, a guy that I know related a phone call that he received from the Republican National Committee soliciting money for the Republican cause.

The guy is not a registered Republican, but he does subscribe to a conservative economic magazine (I forget which one he said it was...)

This guy is fiscally conservative and socially liberal and he claims the title of Libertarian.

During the course of conversation with the solicitor, this guy politely stated that he wished to decline giving monies to the RNC.

The lady on the phone stated that conservatives were only two votes away from re-claimiing the Senate.

Again, the guy declined to donate.

The lady on the phone stated that "Libruls like Nancy Pelosi will want to raise taxes."

The guy said he replied that the G.W. Bush Administration has run-up the deficit to a historically high number and has spent and spent on this "war."

The lady on the phone stated that the RNC needs help to return to the "Reagan Principles."


Reagan Principles?!

Did the lady just effectively discount the entire seven years of the G.W. Bush Administration and the four years of his father?

Are Republicans running away from G.W. Bush as Al Gore did in 2000 trying to get away from Bill Clinton's Oval Office shenanigans?

Interesting...

No, they are running towards the Great Communicator.

And Mr. Gore did not try to "get away" from Bill Clinton's Oval Office shenanigans. He was completely frank and clear in his opinion of Clinton's peccadilloes as well as his position on Clinton's execution of his duties as Chief Executive.

If not running, definitely guess driven to the graveyard.

Why would anyone want to return to Reagan principles, at least the fiscal ones? Reagan is second only to Bush 43 in running up the deficit.

Maybe she hoped no one would remember (ahh! that's the Reagan principle she was referring to).

The Reagan Principle was to cut taxes and to cut spending! When the Dmocratically controlled Congress passed Pres. Reagan's tax cuts they promised to cut spending as much the taxes were cut. Since the president must either sign the entire budget bill or veto the entire budget bill, Reagan signed the budget bills the Democratically controlled Congress presented to him. Those budgets were grudgingly signed by Reagan because Congress did cut the taxes as he had asked. But did the Democratically controlled Congress cut the spending as they had said they would? Because of the huge deficit it is obvious that the Democrats did not cut the spending as they had promised to. Now to protect the dishonesty of the Democratically controlled Congress Democrats are blaming the deficits that occured during the Reagan administration on Reagan. The Democrats in Congress lied and did not cut the spending they increased it! The deficits that happened during the Reagan administration were created by the Democratically controlled Congress not Pres. Reagan!

Senator, you might notice the same party controlled Congress for a long period during which deficit spending - relatively - remained constant & in control. If you look at the chart in the last 50 years, only two administrations - totally & undeniably during two administrations - did spending & revenue control lose control. If the president feels he has totally no control of spending, and then slashes revenue, he has abdicated his leadership role and is guilty of gross national negligence. Both Reagan & both Bushes did just that. Of course, the rich enjoyed the resultant lack of revenue pursuit, and the economy tanked. If a real president, a leader, feels those two issues - spending & revenue - are out of control, a real president might consider stopping the process until a balance is regained. Gosh, I believe Clinton mighta done just that. Oh my!!!

link

Reagan for the Defense

(Editor's note: Following are excerpts from an article published in TIME magazine on April 4, 1983.)

The crusade Ronald Reagan has embarked upon requires that he balance two competing messages: the U.S. must resolutely rearm to counter the Soviet threat, but it must project its peaceful intent along with its military might. Congress must be convinced that his $274 billion defense budget for fiscal 1984 ought not to be gutted. The nuclear freeze movement at home and abroad has to be countered so that the U.S. can upgrade its strategic forces and proceed with deployment of NATO missiles. And the Soviet Union needs to be persuaded that the West will not shrink from nuclear competition if its proposals for arms reductions are spurned. In a television address last week, Reagan confronted this complicated balancing act by graphically depicting what he claims is Moscow's "margin of superiority" while broaching a surprising and controversial idea for preventing nuclear war.

Reagan refused to retreat an inch in defending what is now proposed to be a $2 trillion, five-year military spending plan. Speaking just 33 minutes after the House voted to cut by more than half his proposed 10 percent increase in next year's Pentagon budget, the President sharply assailed the arguments of his critics as "nothing more than noise based on ignorance."


Then, in concluding his down-to-earth defense of his budget, Reagan launched the debate over U.S. military spending into an entirely different orbit. "Let me share with you a vision of the future which offers hope," he began. The President went on to suggest that America forsake the three-decade-old doctrine of deterring nuclear war through the threat of retaliation and instead pursue a defensive strategy based on space-age weaponry designed to "intercept and destroy" incoming enemy missiles. "I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete."

Embarking on an effort to build shields rather than swords was a characteristic Reagan gesture -- a clear and simple assertion from his gut challenging the accepted wisdom that defensive systems are "destabilizing." His notion that missiles could be knocked out in space had a wistful though dangerous appeal; it suggested that the nation could be defended without earthly sacrifice and bloodshed.


Still wurking hard, and paying, on that star wars thingie that couldnt shoot down a ICBM wearing 6 inch 'Find me" plastic heels.

Anyone know how much we have spent on that white elephant?

White elephant, is it? This pipe-dream has funded invaluable research into chaos theory, modular programming, chip technology, memory technology, communications technology and project management! to name but a few.

Quite the worthless boondoggle

What a bunch of liberal, defeatocrat nonsense, TAT. Even a ersatz Conservative can plainly detect the smell of fear that emanates from Left Wing Democrats at the mere mention of the name "Ronald Reagan".

The space shield is a magnificent idea, not so easy perhaps as going to the moon, but so much more important in an increasingly dangerous world. The last thing America needs at this critical time is more criticism. Think of what we could accomplish if we would just stop the negativity and nay-saying! When Ronald Reagan first proposed the Protective Dome over the USA, hardly half of the countries who wish us dead today felt that way, and 3 times as many now have or will shortly have the means to carry out their nefarious plans to rid the world of Freedom and Democracy.

I don't know why or who is leaking the news of every failed test of the missile shield, but I do know that if we told everybody that it was working really really well, and stuck by the story no matter what, then our enemies would think twice about attacking us.

It's not Ronald Reagan who will save us, it's the IDEA of Ronald Reagan. It's not a functioning shield that will protect us, it is the belief in the shield. Just as our great economy is based on faith, our freedoms and values are also the product of a belief system - undermining them only takes a little irresponsible bad-mouthing. I just wish it would stop.

Bob there is an old saying about the budget that is very helpful to this discussion. "The president proposes and Congress disposes." A president can propose whatever he wants but Congress is the one that has always controlled the country's purse. That is why Article I Section 8 clause 2 is very important to this discussion.
Congress spends the money the president does not!