Pat Buchanan: "New Deal was a bust..."

[rfranklin]

....Politically, the New Deal was a smashing success, with FDR’s landslides in 1932, 1934 and 1936 virtually wiping out the GOP.

Yet, economically, the New Deal was a bust, failing utterly to restore prosperity. Despite the indoctrination of generations of schoolchildren in New Deal propaganda, that is the hard truth.

Consider, now, how Ronald Reagan responded to the economic crisis of 1980, the worst since the Depression. In the "stagflation" of that Jimmy Carter era, interest rates had reached 21 percent and inflation 13 percent.

Reagan’s answer was the tight money policy of Fed Chairman Paul Volcker and across-the-board tax cuts of 25 percent, while slashing the highest rates from 70 percent to 28 percent.

While unemployment hit 10 percent in 1982 and Reagan lost 26 House seats, in 1983 the tax cuts kicked in. From there on out, it was boom times until Reagan rode off into the sunset, having created 20 million new jobs. "The Seven Fat Years," author Robert Bartley called them.

-more-

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28579400/

They are really working hard at pushing this reactionary version of history.

[DainBramaged]

1. Pat Pukehannan, your brain is a bust

[dkofos]

4. That's what I was about to say.

[DainBramaged]

7. Great minds think alike, or maybe Bramaged minds!

:hi:

[anonymous171]

2. Reagan fucked the working class over. Fuck him. nt

[jimshoes]

3. You know what was a bust....

Neoconsevatism, that's what. It sucks and has sucked every day since raygun. What does it tell you when the neocons need to dredge up a 60 to 70 year old program that most folks were not even alive for to compare their shitty programs to? And most people seem to think the New Deal worked fairly well. So, to re-cap... 1, gw bush is a loser, 2, neoconservatism sucks and every neocon alive is a thief, 3, republicans will never admit they are idiots even though the evidence is overwhelming. and 4, they as a party are through. Good riddance.

[rfranklin]

10. Unfortunately, one of two things will happen for Republicans...

1. Times will get worse because they have fucked up so badly. But they will convince the public that it is the Dems fault and use fascistic propaganda to get in power again.

2. Times will get better due to the Dems and the public will forget why times are better. The Republicans will then exploit any splinter issues they can find and get back into power.

[Peacetrain]

5. Great minds must think alike, I just did a thread on that thought

"sans" the input of the delusional republicans

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4803201

[pretzel4gore]

6. hell will straighten you out, patty boy

fukkin bullying thug
(in a way, it's too bad this mediawhore stooge gets to spew his endless lies, but, who cares anymore? Reactionary goofs have literally murdered the golden goose aka the US economy, and while Obama may try to Clinton over the cracks in the wtf dam, he's gonna exhaust himself fighting the nazipoohs like this 'pukecannon' idyet, and will never get around to getting the imperial pigsty back on the rails (we hope:)) and, in the end, the lying bastards will end up with nothing but a flat-earth consensus, and indifference to all facts, no matter how pertinent)

[BlooInBloo]

8. The meme is going through the standard republican pipeline...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4792885

[charlie]

9. Carter appointed Volcker

Pat knows that. 21% interest was part of his fix, Pat knows that too. What sunk Carter was that the most wrenching effects of the cure happened at the end of his term, instead of at the beginning as it did for Reagan. Reagan's parting gift was to dump Volcker for the Bubblicious Randroid and now we're so far underwater the Carter years could wind up looking like a St Tropez vacation.

[Tashca]

11. He should have told the whole story.

Correct me if I'm wrong.
I believe Reagan also presided over the largest tax increase in history at the time. The tax cuts targeted the wealth class and the tax increase targeted the middle and lower class. Mostly through elimination of deductions. I also seem to remember his increase tax came down hard on small business. His policies were nearly the exact opposite of what Obama campaigned on....

I vividly remember Reagan and his henchman Volker. They went along ways toward reshaping the agricultural landscape here in the midwest with their policies. They set the stage for massive shifts of capital to farm consolidation and Agri. businesses and help end the small family farm. I guess they called it the farm crisis.

[rfranklin]

12. Payroll taxes went up 44% under Reagan...

From Paul Krugman's column--

In 1980, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, middle-income families with children paid 8.2 percent of their income in income taxes, and 9.5 percent in payroll taxes. By 1988 the income tax share was down to 6.6 percent -- but the payroll tax share was up to 11.8 percent, and the combined burden was up, not down.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E5DE1F31F93BA35755C0A9629C8B63

[charlie]

13. True

And also during that time, Greenspan was heralded as the man who "saved" Social Security forever and ever, amen, through benefit cuts and whopping tax increases. Less than 20 years later he was sounding the klaxons about SS's eminent bust if we don't offload much of it onto Wall Street, the lying skeeve.

[TWiley]

14. More of that "good-old-fashioned Christian Love"

Civil war vets, and WWI vets would literally die in the streets if they had no family to care for them. And, these were people who were of service to their country at one time. Think of the compassion towards a child not healthy enough to "serve".

[Deja Q]

15. Pat, oh Pat, with your brains of splat... bugger off.

[sutz12]

16. I just love the irony in the RW attacks....

What was it about WWII that "ended the Depression?"

I wonder if it had anything to do with basically unrestrained deficit spending? I suppose that one could say that "war funding" is somehow "morally superior" than building roads and stuff, but the fact is that the war also took about 12,000,000 jobless off the streets and gave them paying military jobs, at government expense, paid for on credit.

Another 20,000,000 or so were put to work building vehicles and weapons systems, providing supplies, erecting facilities and infrastructure, ad infinitum, all paid for by government credit, including millions of women who were able to work outside the home for the first time in their lives. Even many minorities benefited (at least economically, if not socially) from, yes, govenment financed jobs.

While in many ways, yes, WWII "ended the Depression," it did so through the mechanism of Government spending, most of it borrowed.

[hankthecrank]

17. Sorry ass your version of history is just a mirage

Saint Ronny raised my taxes

Saint Ronny is dead so now I can call him all the names I want. Didn't before because he was sick. Saint Ronny sucked ass ever thing he touched turned to into a big steaming pile of shit.

Saint Ronny was the south end of north bound mule and that is still to nice!

[rcsl1998]

18. This Is The Latest Right Wing Meme & Cannot Be Ignored...

...this latest right wing big lie BS cannot be allowed to go unchallenged into the American chatter - They are the historical revisionists and count on Americans not knowing or learning from the past. Laugh at them at our own peril!