Q: Why do Liberals always seem to bash President Ronald Reagan for the increased debt during his terms as President?
A: Because it’s too easy.
Generally speaking, Reagan’s deficit spending was a composite of three factors:
- Increasing military and defense spending, simultaneously preventing WWIII and drop-kicking the Soviet Union’s economy back to the 12th century. I am very happy that, as a 20 year old 2nd Lieutentant, I didn’t end up becoming a character in a Tom Clancy novel, having to shoot a whole lot of artillery at the Russians in the Fulda Gap, if the "balloon went up" (but never did).
- Large tax cuts, stimulating the economy (the right way, not the Obama way), paving the way for the massive economic boom of the 1990’s that we all enjoyed (especially Bill Clinton)
- Lack of constitutional awareness in Congress – made up of both Democrats and Republicans.
I say "constitional awareness" because "military and defense spending" is something the Federal Government is supposed to do. Social Security, Medicare, education management, excessive State-level pork projects, and a whole mess of other expensive programs, are not.
So, if we could just keep the first two items of the list alive, and get much better at the third, we should be in fine shape, perhaps giving our children another economic boom, just like the one we had.
According to my homeboy, George Washington, un-Conservatives (my new term, to include Liberals, Progressives, Socialists, Communists, and Charlie Bass) have dropped the ball a number of times.
How about we get it right this time?
"As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible: avoiding occasions of expence by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expence, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen which we ourselves ought to bear." —George Washington, Farewell Address
(H/T: Founder’s Quote Daily, c/o Patriot Post)