Thursday, February 11, 2021

In This Year of 20??

I was reorganizing some of my earliest blog postings way back in 2008. Remember 2008? Those were the days of Shrub, Cheney and Condi Rice, just before we elected Barack Obama. And what struck me was that my state of mind then most resembles my state of mind in, say 2019 or even 2020. And I am talking politics, not the pandemic.  Remember my old standard about Trump: “How do you know he is lying? Well, whenever he opens his mouth and words come tumbling out, he is lying!” Sounds like Trump, huh? Well, turns out I said the exact same thing about Shrub way back in 2008.

And it brings me back to St. Ronald of Reagan. Well, I didn’t have a blog then did I? No, actually, I worked in our government under Reagan for six years. Originally I left the private sector at The Urban Institute and went to work running an evaluation office under Jimmy Carter’s DHEW, before he shipped off Education to its own NeverLand.  Working under Carter was kind of pleasant. He had a pretty good cabinet, and I always had the feeling that President Jimmy actually cared about facts and Truth, and about how America was doing.  Then St. Ronald won the election, and everything changed.  Well, not immediately, but change it did.

The shtick about Reagan was that he made it ok again to be a racist. Remember all those tales he spun about welfare queens driving to the store in their Cadillacs? He was inviting racists to come out of their closets.  I realize that republicans worship at the feet of St. Ronald. But, having worked under his administration, I came to understand that he really did not understand much of anything except maybe, Power. He apparently liked the Power thing, and he also liked the wartime president thing.  I guess all presidents become aware of the wartime president thing.  Remember FDR? Yeah, that wartime president. Everyone loved FDR and supported everything we were doing to defeat the Nazi’s.  Remember that? Yeah, we actually used to despise Nazi’s, instead of inviting them to riotously breaking into the Capitol.

So, Ronnie adopted hard line rhetoric against so many it was difficult to keep track. Remember that old “Evil Empire” formerly known as the USSR? And most famously, remember the Iran-Contra scandal, when St. Ronald sold arms to the terrorist regime in Iran and then used the proceeds to supply arms to the Nicaraguan Contras? Oh he had such fun.

But mainly, I remember how he used lies to cover his tracks every time he adopted some policy.  He seemed to revel in lies. Remember that old “Laffer Curve” that he adopted and sold to the country? The Laffer Curve suggested that as you reduce government taxation of corporations in particular, government tax revenues would increase, or at least not decrease. Instead, as implemented by Reagan, the tax cuts he implemented led to the largest budget deficits in the Nation’s history.

From PoliticoFact: "(President Ronald) Reagan took the deficit from 70 billion to 175 billion." This is more or less accurate. The federal deficit went from about $78.9 billion at the beginning of Reagan’s presidency to $152.6 billion at the end of it. At points between 1983 and 1986, the deficit was actually more than $175 billion.

"(George H.W.) Bush 41 took it to 300 billion." Close, but not exactly. The number was around $255 billion at the end of Bush’s term. The deficit spiked at around $290.3 billion the year before he left office.

"(Bill) Clinton got it to zero." This is true. During his presidency, Clinton managed to zero out the deficit and end his term with a $128.2 billion surplus.

"(George W.) Bush 43 took it from 0 to 1.2 trillion." This is in the ballpark. Ignoring the fact that he actually started his presidency with a surplus, Bush left office in 2009 with a federal deficit of roughly $1.41 trillion.

"(Barack) Obama halved it to 600 billion." This is essentially accurate. Obama left the presidency with a deficit of approximately $584.6 billion, which is more than halving $1.41 trillion. The deficit was even lower in 2015 at around $441.9 billion.

And then President Trump? Well . . .” A Treasury Department statement from June put the federal deficit at about $747.1 billion so far, but the agency also reported that Washington is on track to post a $1.1 trillion deficit.”

So, St. Ronnie did really produce huge deficits via his Laffer Curve economics, but his later republican colleagues even outdid his stupidity.

All this is to say that Trump did not invent lying, or stupidity as a republican president. He has had lots of company (Oh, remember Hoover???).

Well, I think I will have to put aside this infatuation with republican stupidities and focus instead on observing their behavior over the next several days on the Impeachment trial of our former republican president. Remember him? What was his name again? Oh, yeah. The Drumpf, or Stupidhead as he is known among his close associates and BFFs.  So, we shall see what republicans do in the face of the evidence against Trump at his trial.  But don’t hold your breath about a conviction, folks. Republican anarchists like Rand Paul hate anyone being held accountable.

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