On way to N.H., TPaw says "No" is a good answer
Good Wednesday morning Fellow Seekers,
Gov. Pawlenty is heading to New Hampshire today. We'll skip here the usual mandatory sentence noting that this may be taken as another indication that he's running for prez. He'll speak at a fund-raiser tonight for Repub candidates for the N.H. State Senate.
In a setup piece for the visit Real Clear Politics notes that N.H. visits by likely prez candidates have been surprisingly few until now. (Sarah Palin didn't even go there on a her book tour). RCP also calls attention to one interesting inside-baseballish fact that may take on more importance when the N.H. primary gets close. New Hampshire has an open primary (not unusual, it just means that voters can vote in the Dem or Repub primary whichever they choose on election day).
Assuming Pres. Obama faces only token opposition, most independents will probably choose to vote in the Repub primary, which means whichever of the Repub candidates is deemed to be the moderate might have an elevated chance. Although Pawlenty is really just as conservative (and arguably moreso) than the other likely top Repub candidates, he has the knack of coming across as more moderate. As political scientist Dan Hofrenning said told me the last time I wrote about Pawlenty's prez bid, if you can come across as conservative to conservatives and moderate to moderates, that's political gold.
Anyway, in an interview with a New Hampshire radio station this a.m. in preparation for his visit, Pawlenty was pitching to the right side of the plate. He called for a federal balanced budget amendment, highlighted the dangers of out-of-control federal deficits, and said that the public has to learn how to value politicians who know how to say "no" as much as they do politicians who say "yes" to everything.
Since many DFLers like to taunt Pawlenty with the nickname Governor No, I found it interesting that Pawlenty views it as a badge of honor.
What think?
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Comments (36)
"What think?"
Its a direct rebuttal to the Dems efforts to paint the GOP as the party of no. Pretty good marketing, actually, which the Repubs seem to be much better at than the Dems. They don't have a good soundbite for noting that saying 'no' means the status quo, which could use a little improvement.
It almost seems quaint to hear a politician talk about limiting spending. Especially since this year's stimulus spending has proved so able at reducing unemployment and encouraging growth. Apparently Pawlenty hasn't heard of the wonderful 'multiplier' that was thrown around so much earlier this year.
The Dems are a rhetorical disaster, it's always been frustrating. But on another note someone should point out that the active role the media has played in Pawlenty's portrayal as a "moderate". The media portrayal of him as Mr. "likeable" has gone a long way towards establishing his myth of moderation. I never understood what was so likeable about stomping on the poor and sick of MN but there you have it.
"[Pawlenty]...said that the public has to learn how to value politicians who know how to say "no" as much as they do politicians who say "yes" to everything."
Well, let's think back to the budget plans presented last year. The DFL plan was resolved the budget shortfall in thirds: 1/3 tax increases, 1/3 accounting shifts, and 1/3 SPENDING CUTS. In my world, 1/3 tax increases = 1/3 spending cuts, meaning that this would be a plan that "says 'no' as much as it says 'yes'".
Pawlenty's plan, however, involved only spending cuts and accouting shifts. I'm not sure how his "yes/no ratio" could be considered anywhere near the ideal found in his rhetoric in that article above.
Good politics -- bad governance.
Odd concept of what a leader is: he's the guy who says no to everything?
Q: We have a problem, how are we going to solve it?
A: No!
or how about...
Q: We have a problem, do you have a solution?
A: No!
or maybe...
Q: What issues do you think we should be addressing?
A: No!
Just because some people don't LIKE the solutions proposed does not mean saying "No" to THEIR solutions is "just saying no."
When Pawlenty said in January "You solve it -- but with no tax increases" it was the legislature that said "No!"
When they tried to force his hand, he gave them a veto, which both he and they knew they could not override. They had time, if they had had a no tax increase alternative, to pass a bill he could sign. They said "no" and went for the override.
"Let's be clear here," about who was the "just say no" party, to use a phrase loved by the new left when they are about twist the facts.
First of all, I would urge the governor to come home and fix the Minnesota budget before he preaches us on the fiscal fix for the nation.
Governor Pawlenty started with a deficit of about 3.5 billion dollars. The recently projected budget for the coming biennium is between 5 and 7 billion dollars. So he hasn't made a lot of headway by putting Minnesota back in the black.
The constitutional amendment is not a quick fix to the problem. As for the line item veto, fine. But a line item veto doesn't balance a budget all by itself. There are 43 governors with line item veto's and we are sitting on a lot of red ink here in Minnesota. So lets not pretend that there is an easy fix to this problem.
The governor is offering stuff that sounds good but doesn't deal with the reality of what has to be done right now.
RE: "When Pawlenty said in January "You solve it -- but with no tax increases" it was the legislature that said "No!""
The governor's defenders are taking the position that says "Dad warned you he would get mad if you touched his stereo, and now that you touched his stereo, it is your fault that he threw the remote control at your head." I think the governor's base must share a childhood spent placating a tyrannical parent.
Paul, I think you have the analogy wrong. It's more like a parent saying, "We don't have money to buy everything you want." Some children can't take that message well and think that the parent is 'mean'.
So you agree then, that the job of the state executive is to be conducted like an autocratic parent.
I'm loosing this.
So TPaw really didn't say "No". What he actually said was "Yes" to the legislatures' "No".
Is that right?
I think the call for Pawlenty to come home and fix the budget may flow out of a fundamentally flawed assumption. Looking back at Pawlenty's career, and policies one has to consider the possibility that he just doesn't get basic economics. Whether it's just flat out ignorance or ideological blindness at this point there is no denying that he just get it. His call for a federal balanced budget amendment that would precluded deficit spending on the federal level betrays extreme ignorance in this regard. Such an amendment would have made it impossible to fight WWII for instance. His absolute refusal to factor inflation or revenue into the state budget for such a sustained period raises the question: "does he really believe this crap?" Eventually one has to ask if he's just being rhetorical or if he really believes these childish comparisons of state budgets to household budgets. I know he's not a dumb guy, but that doesn't mean he's an economic wiz, clearly he is not. As near as I can tell, from transportation, to energy, to budget deficits Pawlenty has a distinguished record of always being wrong when it comes to economics. At some point you have to accept the fact that he just doesn't know how run a government budget. Or worse, he knows but just refuses to do it. Even with his draconian, heavy handed, and probably unconstitutional use of unallotment, he still FAILED to balance the budget much less erase the deficit. The may be clever, but it could be the complexities of economics are just beyond him.
#13 Paul:
You are right on about a federal balanced budget amendment. When the security of the nation is at stake the government must be able to respond, by borrowing, if necessary, to defend us.
As for Pawlenty's stance on state government spending, a quibble is in order:
Neither Pawlenty nor the Legislature "made" the deficit -- declines in state revenues did it and are continuing to do it.
The legislature wants to fix it by "tax 'em, tax 'em, and tax 'em some more to fund our pet projects only marginally affordable in good times."
The governor wants to take the approach the taxpayers must use when expenditures outstrip income: cut spending. This is only "impossible" if one assumes that every good thing MUST be funded -- often to satisfy a constituency or buy a vote.
While liberal constituencies may be outraged at the loss of government perks they enjoy, weary taxpayers tend to like the governor's approach.
He's not a bad guy: he just disagrees with liberal thinkers who want to feed at the trough as though the well was bottomless.
He's clearly not a dumb guy. The LSAT alone requires a certain level of basic intelligence. Judging by his record in office of seeking the limelight and taking ideological stands in spite of their consequences, then demonizing the opposition, he is probably better described as a shallow person, who is not a very mature person emotionally, who clearly has a very low problem solving interpersonal skill set, and given the damage he has managed to blithely overlook, sort lacks much in the way of character.
Paul Scott, the veto power that we've given the executive does make of them an autocrat in a way that few other things other than being a parent do.
John I: I agree that reductions in revenue "made" the deficit.
However, you don't seem to recognize that the 1999 and 2001 tax cuts for the wealthy lost us $1 billion in revenue per year, for a total so far of $9 billion at the end of this year.
And who "made" the cuts? Jesse and our Tim.
Peder DeFor, you haven't mentioned whether that approach is at all effective. As a parent, I surely have the ability to wrestle my six year old into clothes that she doesn't want to wear. That doesn't mean I view that as an effective long term strategy for success.
Just to be clear--
Budget cuts COST someone....
In this case they cost the poor who have lost health care; they have cost school children who are less effectively educated due to increased class sizes (that relationship has been documented, and ~80% of school district budgets are personnel -- most of that is teachers so there is no way for a school district to sustain continued budget cuts without cutting staff and thus increasing class sizes).
So what Pawlenty is really doing is shifting costs from corporate and upper class State income tax payers to the poor, to children, and to county and municipal property tax payers.
TANSTAAFL
//Neither Pawlenty nor the Legislature "made" the deficit -- declines in state revenues did it and are continuing to do it.
The legislature wants to fix it by "tax 'em, tax 'em, and tax 'em some more to fund our pet projects only marginally affordable in good times."
The governor wants to take the approach the taxpayers must use when expenditures outstrip income: cut spending.
Jon,
Revenues dropped because we cut taxes and refused to raise them again. Yes, there's been a recession, but revenue is revenue, it's either sufficient or it isn't. This was the classic Republican "magic plan"- cut taxes and wait for the magic to happen. Well, there's no such thing as magic. It was a smoke screen for the hidden agenda of cutting social services. The promise is always that they'll find efficiencies but the truth is that there just aren't enough inefficiencies to make up the difference and there never were.
Tax cuts are revenue cuts. When was the last time you or any other family responded to a personal financial crises by cutting your revenue? Is that what you do? Do you tell your wife: "OK, we got cut our spending, and I'll go into the boss tomorrow and ask for a pay cut"? Sure, you look at your spending, but you also try to figure out how make a little more. The idea that government is just doing what families or businesses do when they cut spending AND revenue is just silly. Pawlenty has generated nothing but deficits, and worsening deficits his entire time in office because he refuses to raise revenue, and the cost of government goes up, despite innovation and privatization. You may be able to find a fraction of a percent of savings in inefficiencies but the idea that you were gonna find hundred of millions or billions of dollars was simply insane.
The other thing to remember about government spending, unlike your family budget is it generates economic activity, the money doesn't just go into a hole in the back yard. For every dollar you spend on taxes you get $6 - $8 back in economic stimulus. So not only is cutting revenue a bad idea, but cutting spending can be a really bad idea as well. Pawlenty's done both, at the worst possible time.
Both Jesse and Tim made the cuts, but Pawlenty has been at the helm a lot longer, and the results have been clear, yet he refuses change course.
Yeah, no dummy passes the LSAT, which means he's done all off this deliberately? One reason why he's not such a "likeable" guy in my book.
Peter, we're not talking about "wants" and children with toys. We're talking about health care, battered women's shelters, law enforcement, education, fire and emergency services. It would be nice to have bridges that don't collapse underneath us. Pawlenty isn't my father, and I'm not his child, and by the way, neither are you.
Paul:
Let's be clear here. Government, unlike citizen economic activity, never generates a single dollar of new wealth. What government does is RESITRIBUTE wealth created by others.
When the citizen spends for himself and his family that dollar you might have taken for taxes, it generates the same multiple in terms of economic activity, and sometimes more, as government famously makes dollars disappear in the process of spending them.
Tax cuts are a way to leave those dollars in private hands, free to generate further economic activity.
A dollar earned by fruitful economic activity helps the economy. A dollar redistributed by greedy politicians helps only the politicians and those enjoying their favor.
An argument can be made that society should help those in most need. It is much more difficult to argue that government -- always the most wasteful spender in a society -- should be the instrument for that help. Compare what the Salvation Army accomplishes with a dollar to what a government bureaucrat does. No comparison.
The idea that every government sponsored project dollar is of benefit to those in need is ludicrous. Just consider the four fellows who have to stand around that hiway truck while one poor fellow actually does the work because of job restrictions. Just consider the "nice" projects funded by our legislators while scrimpting on the truly essential things like police protection.
To argue that reduced income requires cuts in medical help to the truly unfortunate, rather than renegotiated "fat cat" pensions and health care plans for AFSCME employees simply hides the true priorities of politicians.
Paul B: "Just to be clear--
Budget cuts COST someone...."
Agreed. The question is WHO should they cost?
The legislator with the bloated staff?
The AFSCME employee with fully paid health coverage and full pension -- far in excess of his fellow non-government employee citizen?
The school district that pays $3,000.00 for a $699.00 computer because not one of the administrators knows a lick about cost accounting?
The program administrator for a "feel good" esoteric program that makes the wealthy feel that culture is being guarded?
The legislator from up north that wants to "bring home the bacon" for his district to assure his reelection?
Or the disabled child with poor parents who needs ongoing medical care, and the policeman who has to encounter a violent home situation alone because his partner has been laid off.
It's a question of real -- versus revealed -- priorities on the part of politicians.
//Let's be clear here. Government, unlike citizen economic activity, never generates a single dollar of new wealth. What government does is RESITRIBUTE wealth created by others.
John, I don't have time to teach a course in basic economics, but in short economies run on commerce. Commerce, the buying and selling of products and services requires infrastructure, all kinds of infrastructure from financial to security (fire and police), to transportation. The "new wealth" you refer to would be impossible without this infrastructure. That's why countries like the US, Japan, etc. with well financed and developed governments have big and productive economies, (although currently in recession), compared to countries like Somalia or Haiti which have no effective government.
Your anti government diatribe not withstanding civilization has produced governments for a reason, and there's not a single example in history of a nation without a government developing into a wealthy nation. Without our constitution, and government it created, and the infrastructure that was built by the government, from the water reclamation projects that turned California from a desert into a breadbasket, to the electricity that the Tennessee Valley Authority brought to the factories and cities of our industrial heartland, this wealth you speak of would simply never have been. Were it not for the federal highway system Walmart wouldn't be able to keep it's shelves stocked for instance and 1.5 people who work for Wallmart wouldn't have a job. Without the educated workforce our public education and university systems produced out post war boom would have been impossible. Without the internet infrastructure that DARPA developed, Google and Microsoft wouldn't be a gleam in anyone's eyes. Why to you think Google, Intel, and Microsoft are all in Seattle instead of Somalia or Rowanda? And I haven't gone into direct programs like government contracts, and government funded research which have brought us everything from nuclear power to teflon. I could go one but you don't get the point by now I'm wasting my time.
All economic activity is a transfer of wealth. The difference with government spending is that the benefits are distributed more broadly as a general rule, stadiums being one example of an exception. By the way, I'm sure the Pohlads, Ziggy, and the owners of the MOA would be interested in your theory that government spending doesn't create wealth.
Paul U:
If I understand you correctly, you argue that government redistribution of wealth does create secondary actities which produce wealth.
My point, however, is not that such secondary effects do not occur, but that they occur just as much -- and often more so -- when the original wealth (created, not redistributed) held by taxpayers is left with them to spend.
My scenario, if carried to extreme, would create a thriving, but often inequitable society, as was seen in the 19th century. Regulation would be required -- and by government, which does pretty well at that except when regulating its own activity.
Your scenario, if carried to extreme, would remove all incentive to create wealth, as those who would create it, taxed at 100%, would have no incentive to create it. And we would be in the position of the polish worker who said "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us."
I do not agree that without government wastefully attempting to emulate enterpreneurs there would be no progress. Our own American history puts that to the lie.
Our ancestors, coming here with ambition and willingness to work, built a formidable economy that became the envy of the world long before government lent a hand, perhaps the Erie Canal excepted.
Other cultures you refer to have never had the kind of population we have, and usually have been beaten down by totalitarian leaders who taxed them into a state of permanent subservience, like slaves everywhere.
John I.
//My point, however, is not that such secondary effects do not occur, but that they occur just as much -- and often more so -- when the original wealth (created, not redistributed) held by taxpayers is left with them to spend.
I'm afraid your simply mistaken here John, this is an article of faith based economics not real world economic. If this were the case there would be a correlation between taxes and wealth. In fact there is a negative correlation, the wealthiest countries are NOT those with the lowest taxes.
On the other hand you have to remember John, accumulation of wealth is not the meaning of life, it's not the sole function of society, nations, and individuals. Low tax nations tend to have a lower quality of life not simply because they lack wealth, but they lack the infrastructure of daily life. Transportation, mail service, security, drinking water, etc. aren't just about making money. I hate to use a cliche but civilization isn't free, taxes are the price we pay. Unless of course your writing us from the tax free paradise of Somalia.
Paul U:
If I thought the accumulation of wealth was the meaning of life I would not have become a CPA.
I would put your comment about low tax nations somewhat differently: Nations with little wealth tend to have a lack of infrastructure of daily life. They also have smaller taxes, because you can't get blood from a turnip.
Wealthier nations do not have that wealth because of the taxes. The taxes are greater because of the presence of greater wealth to appropriate.
But if something happens to increase available wealth, the citizens busily turn it into improvements themselves, unless government preempts them by taking the wealth away.
People needed to get across rivers before government built ferries or bridges. They built the bridges and ferries themselves.
This does not mean that government should not EVER do anything. Making war when necessary is one example: waste is not the prime issue there.
But elsewhere, waste of time, intelligent planning, and resources IS an issue.
I believe government works best when it attempts -- even imperfectly -- to regulate activities rather than do them itself.
We don't seem to be able to see what is before us every day: there is no government program which will not be wastefully taken advantage of within months by grasshoppers intent on a free ride. The law of unintended consequences always seems to prevail.
One does not have to be economically sophisticated to see the point of the story of the little red hen.
John,
//Wealthier nations do not have that wealth because of the taxes. The taxes are greater because of the presence of greater wealth to appropriate.
Clearly then, contrary to your primary assertion, taxes do not destroy wealth. Your thesis is simply circular. You offer no economic wisdom here, just ideology. It's magic plan economics, Bush Sr. had it right when he called it voodoo economics, I call it magic plan economics. Cut taxes and wait for the magic to happen. There's no such thing as magic, this why whenever you guys get a chance to live the dream you create recessions and deficits. If you had a point, you'd be able to point an example of a low tax wealthy nation comparable to the U.S. All you have is a promise that never pans out. Nations with much higher tax rates than ours prosper and outperform our economy. The Netherlands for instance with tax rates much higher than ours has yet see unemployment rates over 3% during this world wide recession.
The tax argument is irrational because it fails to recognize the proper function of taxes in the economy and treats them like loss. No rational conversation about economics can be organized around taxes reductions in and of themselves. The reason the small government paradigm has been such a disaster for our economy is because it's disconnected from rational measurement. I've never met a small government advocate who actually tell me how big the government ought to be, just smaller than it is. The question is never how big or small the government should be, it what you want the government to do or not do. How big should it be? Big enough to do what you want it to do. How high the taxes be? High enough to pay for government. No-taxers dodge any real economic questions by pretending we don't have to talk about what the government actually does, or what we want it to do. They create deficits, and then use them as an excuse to cram service cuts down the electorate's throats. The promise of small government, cheap government, efficient government, just creates one crises after another.
How small should the government be?
Small enough to crowd out the hiring of incompetent persons who cannot find employment in the private sector, but who arrogantly see themselves as superior to the rest of us because they are government employees. Like accountants who cannot get a job with accounting firms or with private companies, who then try to work for the federal government and if that fails the state government. Government should not be the refuge of the unemployable, masking just another hidden jobs program.
Small enough to regulate the private sector, but not big enough to run massive programs subject to exploitation by the grasshoppers of the world like "back to work" programs that spend billions supporting people who would prefer to live without a job.
Small enough to fund necessary military expenditures but not "pork" purchases the Pentagon does not want but that politicians want to siphon tax dollars into their districts.
Small enough to avoid massive contracts with companies of dubious ethics where any fiscal irregularities have been discovered in their billings -- one time and out should be the known rule.
Small enough that a politician would think twice before recommending a constituent for a government job, because his/her budget would not pay for it.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
And by the way, I have studied considerably more than a "basic" course in economics -- probably before you were born -- and have lived long enough to have seen the follies of the economists over and over again. Your arguments were pretty thoroughly vetted during the Reagan years, where mine were pretty well validated.
I also remember FDR, and the socially beneficial changes he engineered saving our country from the potential revolution that was brewing. (It's not widely told how active the communists and nazis were at that time, and the degree of disenchantment with our system there was.)
Social Security was good. Unemployment was good. The Wagner Act was good. Regulation of the banks and the stock market was good. His unrelenting cheerfulness and fireside chats were good -- we all benefitted from those things in hard times.
But he did NOT cure the Depression with all of his government spending programs. It took a war to do that, ten years after the Depression began and eight years after he tried to spend us out of it. Wars are good for that, provided you win them.
The war took millions of young men out of the labor force, giving bargaining power to those who were left and bringing women into the workplace. I'll bet you don't remember those little red and blue tokens we had to have to buy certain commodities. Or the victory gardens. Or the gas rationing. Or the wage/price controls. Or being unable to buy a car even if you now had the money. But it forced us to put the money we now earned into US bonds, which financed our boom after the war. It was the war, not the big government programs, that brought us back to a healthy economy. The social programs never did or would have achieved it.
In my view, government should "protect us from all enemies, foreign and domestic." It should regulate citizen activities to assure that each citizen has "a fair chance" (as Lincoln said it). And it should protect the weakest among us, with help if need be. Anything beyond that is too big in my opinion. I do not expect you will agree.
And by the way, if you intend to refer to the Reagan deficits, may I point out that they were the result of a "devils agreement" that had to be made with a dem congress if he wanted to get the military buildup that forced the Soviet Union to its knees without a shot being fired. It was congress, not Reagan, that forced the deficit spending to continue their big government entitlement policies.
//"devils agreement" that had to be made with a dem congress if he wanted to get the military buildup that forced the Soviet Union to its knees
Nice try, blame congress for Reagan's military build up and tax cuts. It's a pretty narrative but the truth is the Evil empire would have collapsed under it's own weight anyways, and largely did. These attempts to credit Reagan with the Soviet collapse ignore 50 years of history and the reality of the Soviet Union at the time. The military build up was unnecessary. Reagan pursued it despite the fact that he couldn't pay for it. And Mr. honesty didn't tell us he was doing this. He didn't us this build up was going to break the bank, but he was going to do it anyways. He told us not to worry, we could cut taxes and triple the military budget because magic would balance the budget after the tax cuts took effect. Bush called it voodoo economics, and he was right. I agree, the Democrats went along with it, which is one reason I'm not a Democrat, but it was Reagan's magic plan so he owns it even if the Democrats went along with it. This is why Cheney would later say: "Reagan proved deficits don't matter".
//How small should the government be?
Small enough to crowd out the hiring of incompetent persons who cannot find employment in the private sector, ...
Like I said, nothing but ideology. This is why your economics are such a disaster. We're talking about a real entity that that performs real services for real people John. And incompetence isn't confined the public sector by the way as the recent financial crises amply demonstrates. For all your bluster you haven't answered the question: "How big should the government be"? How many people currently work for the government? How many do you think should? Tell us, exactly, how many people should work for MNDOT? How many people should work for the Health Department? How much exactly should it cost? You want to talk about efficiency, fine; tell us exactly how much money your going to find in inefficiencies and exactly where your going to find it? Are you gonna find 7 billion dollars worth of inefficiencies in our state government? Show us, show us where- exactly. At the end of the day John you gotta produce numbers, outrage and promises won't balance the budget which why you guys create deficits. You treat taxes like expenses when in fact they're investments, and you treat government like a liability when in fact it's an asset. You prattle on and on about big government but you're really not saying anything. Obviously government should be efficient, who's advocating inefficient government? We've seen your dream John, it looks like Somalia. Thanks but no thanks.
Not entirely sure, Paul, but methinks you sound more like the blusterer now.
This cpa asks, however, if you know the difference between "expense" and "investment". It would appear you do not. Perhaps a course in accounting 101 would help...
Perhaps, as an afterthought, if you don't want to take the accounting course, I should explain in plain terms:
>An "expense" is money spent for something where you have nothing left after it is gone. Like wages, rent, health care insurance, a Friday night at the bar, and so on.
>An "investment" is money spent where you are left with something of lasting value. Like buying a car for cash. Or buying a house,or building a garage, or putting funds into savings certificates.
By these universal standards, for legislators to call what most of what they spend our dollars on "investments" is at best doubletalk, and at worst a flat lie.
Paul: Just say your comment on the devil's agreement:
Sorry Paul. You may get your own theories, but you don't get your own facts.
I refer you to The Reagan Diaries, Harper Collins,2007.
At 692 pages it's a bit of a slog, but it shows the daily blow by blow with Congress, among other things, and clearly indicates who wanted the deficit spending and who did not. And what had to be made as compomises with Congress to get the military build-up.
While it is true that Reagan held out for his tax cuts, which he was convinced were the right way to pull us out of the recession (which were a resounding success in that regard), he fought just as hard for spending cuts to avoid the deficits. He won on the tax cuts. Not so much on the spending cuts, which Congress would not abide.
History does not change to fit one's wishes, despite the desires of the left (and, I'll admit, sometimes on the right).
John,
"The Reagan Diaries"? Surely the last word.
Look at what you just wrote. Reagan increased spending, and cut taxes. He blew the budget in order to grow military spending, congress didn't make him do that, it was his policy. He got his tax cuts, he got his military spending, the "deal" he cut was for less tax cuts than he wanted. In other words, had he got his way completely, the deficit would have been even bigger. And it didn't pull us out of recession, it created another.
Sorry - not so.
I weary of this thread, so "that's all I have to say about that."