David Stockman

David Stockman And Bruce Bartlett, Former Reagan Economic Policy Advisers, Condemn The Romney-Ryan Republican Ticket As Out Of Mainstream!

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The Republican Party loves to invoke Ronald Reagan as their patron saint, even though his record clearly shows he would not be very happy with the trend in the GOP, as even his son Ron Reagan Jr claims.

But beyond Ron Reagan, Jr., two leading economic policy advisers under President Reagan, Bruce Bartlett and David Stockman, have condemned the Republican Party and its candidates and economic policies as out of the mainstream of American politics.

Bartlett says the party has gone insane, dreams of anarchy and the end of government, and has lost all reasonableness.

Stockman has ridiculed the Ryan budget plan, and condemns the idea of Ryan that more defense spending is necessary, and more tax cuts to the wealthy, while the middle class and the poor are victimized. Stockman see the Ryan Plan as not serious, and lacking any common sense!

It is not just Bartlett and Stockman who are critical of the Ryan Plan, and of the turn of events in the Republican Party.

Many past Republican leaders are privately shaking their heads, and see an electoral disaster coming, and we are seeing moderate conservative Republican Senators such as Olympia Snowe of Maine, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, and Richard Lugar of Indiana, all three leaving, with Lugar not by his own choice, bemoaning the turn of events toward unreasonable extremism, and failure to be willing to cross the aisle for support from Democrats.

Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee is one of many former Republican leaders who have promoted that states led by GOP Governors stop fighting ObamaCare, and to start exchanges for the uninsured, required under the law by 2014, or else the federal government will do so for those states against their will. Frist, himself a surgeon, says these Republicans leaders are misguided, and that the Obama plan was originally a Republican idea in the mid 1990s., an absolutely true statement!

Former Senator Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson is another Republican who has condemned present Republican attitudes, and many former George H. W. Bush aides quietly have joined the Reagan former advisers in calling for an end to the extremism of the present Republican Party.

But, as in 1964, when we had an ideological election defeat for the GOP with Barry Goldwater, it is clear that there will be a need for a defeat of the ideological environment that Mitt Romney has provoked by selecting ideological Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate!

Tax Cuts For the Wealthy: David Stockman Vs. Mike Pence!

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This past weekend, former Reagan Budget Director David Stockman debated the Republican party demand for a continuation of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy with Indiana Congressman Mike Pence, who has been one of the most hard line conservatives insisting on that issue, despite the fact it would add $700 billion to the national debt over ten years, at a time when it is clear that there is dire need to avoid adding to the national debt, which is already over $13 trillion! 🙁

Stockman gave an excellent presentation, and called such a demand for the wealthy to continue to have tax cuts as totally irresponsible and unrealistic in the present economic climate! He made it clear that the Reagan Administration was wrong to allow a tripling of the national debt during the 1980s, and it was recalled that he had resigned early in the administration over the reckless defense spending which caused most of that overwhelming addition to the debt!

Stockman made it clear that the Bush tax cuts in the past decade had been a mistake as well, as it caused a doubling of the national debt, with much of it because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also starting the Medicare prescription plan for senior citizens without taxing to pay for it!

Stockman’s appearance on the interview showed how far the GOP has gone since the 1980s–willingness to be totally reckless in the name of the wealthy, despite the fact that the stratification of American society with the wealthy having such a large portion of the total national wealth, as compared to the middle and lower classes, is the greatest it has ever been!

Pence showed total irresponsibility over the issue of the long range effect of GOP tax policy, and also demonstrated that he has no concern over the effect of budget cuts on domestic needs in the midst of the greatest economic downturn in 80 years!

It again must be recalled that MOST of the national debt increase has been due to Republican Congresses and Republican Presidents, with Jimmy Carter only adding a comparatively small amount to the debt, and Bill Clinton actually balancing the budget in his last years in the White House, and leaving a surplus for George W. Bush, who proceeded to double the national debt, on top of Ronald Reagan tripling the national debt in his time! Reagan added $2 trillion, and George W. Bush $5 trillion to the national debt, meaning seven of the nine trillion added to the debt since Jimmy Carter left office was due to these two Presidents and their administrations alone! 🙁

And the first President Bush added a good portion of the remaining two trillion, leading up to the $10 trillion plus debt when Barack Obama came into office in 2009! This is not what one hears on conservative talk radio and Fox News Channel, however! 🙁 But it is the truth!

So the GOP has a record of total recklessness in the name of the wealthy, while the country flounders economically, and David Stockman was effective in delivering a warning as to the danger of following GOP economic doctrine! 🙁

Alan Greenspan And David Stockman: Tax Cuts For the Wealthy Based On Borrowed Money Are Wrong And Do Not Pay For Themselves!

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Alan Greenspan, the former head of the Federal Reserve Board, and clearly a conservative and Republican in his philosophy, was on the ABC News This Week show yesterday.

Greenspan was asked if a continuation of the Bush tax cuts was a good idea with such a tremendous deficit situation. His response was that, in theory, tax cuts are good, but NOT on borrowed money!

Greenspan also said tax cuts DO NOT pay for themselves in the sense of economic expansion!

Is there any need to go further in seeing that what conservatives and Republicans are enunciating is totally hypocritical? 🙁

We cannot afford, supposedly, to give extended unemployment compensation to those who are long term out of work, even though giving this to them promotes spending and the creation of jobs! But we can give more tax cuts to the top two percent, even though it has been shown that in most cases these people SAVE the money, rather than spend it, and DO NOT create new jobs because of receiving more tax cuts!

To top it off, former Reagan Budget Director David Stockman came up with exactly the same prescription: that tax cuts to the wealthy top two percent on borrowed money does not stimulate the economy! Instead, economists tell us it creates a more stratified society, already the most stratified in the industrial world!

But does this affect Sarah Palin, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, or others in the GOP? No, just keep on borrowing money and raising the deficit so that the rich can become richer, the middle class is made poorer, public services are cut, and the poor become even poorer!

Is this the kind of America we want? To think this is justice requires a warped sense of morality! 🙁