The Paddock

Maybe Obama should quote HIMSELF More often...

“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure,” he said. “It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.” (Sen Obama 2006)

Better than the Dbagocratic Party.

I would agree that he would fit better with moderates (not much difference between Dem's and GOP moderates except which particular things they like to spend money on). Reagan spoke like a libertarian but enacted policy like a moderate, especially with spending and foreign policy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-f-I-FiaY0

Thanks for clarifying that by liberal, you meant democrats. I was thinking you meant people who applied liberal amounts of hot sauce to their rice and beans. Whew!

Reagan was not a moderate Republican by any stretch of the imagination.

Sorry, but I try not to get my opinions from youtube videos. If that is your speed, more power to you.

Reagan quotes used by "libs" point out that once upon a time, the Republican party was moderate. As a poster has mentioned in this thread, the political spectrum has shifted so far right in this country, that Reagan's policies after 1982, including creating the Dept of Veterans Affairs and raising taxes 11 times (after his initial tax cuts), would make him not a "moderate" in today's political world, but rather, a "liberal". Debt celing was raised 18 times too.

Reality is distorted b/c the political spectrum has shifted so far right. That is, the middle of the road in the 80s, is not the middle of the road in 2011 (it would be left of center). Here's an excerpt from CBS news article:

"But following his party's losses in the 1982 election, Reagan largely backed off his efforts at spending cuts even as he continued to offer the small-government rhetoric that helped get him elected. In fact, he went in the opposite direction: His creation of the department of veterans affairs contributed to an increase in the federal workforce of more than 60,000 people during his presidency.

And while Reagan somewhat slowed the marginal rate of growth in the budget, it continued to increase during his time in office. So did the debt, skyrocketing from $700 billion to $3 trillion. Then there's the fact that after first pushing to cut Social Security benefits - and being stymied by Congress - Reagan in 1983 agreed to a $165 billion bailout of the program. He also massively expanded the Pentagon budget.

Meanwhile, following that initial tax cut, Reagan actually ended up raising taxes - eleven times. That's according to former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, a longtime Reagan friend who co-chaired President Obama's fiscal commission that last year offered a deficit reduction proposal.

"Ronald Reagan was never afraid to raise taxes," historian Douglas Brinkley, who edited Reagan's diaries, told NPR. "He knew that it was necessary at times. And so there's a false mythology out there about Reagan as this conservative president who came in and just cut taxes and trimmed federal spending in a dramatic way. It didn't happen that way. It's false."

It's important to note that Reagan's tax increases did not wipe out the effects of that initial tax cut. But they did eat up about half of it. And as Peter Beinart points out, the 1983 payroll tax hike went to pay for Social Security and Medicare. ("Reagan raised taxes to pay for government-run health care," Beinart writes.) Reagan also raised the gas tax and signed the largest corporate tax increase in history, an act Joshua Green writes would be "utterly unimaginable for any conservative to support today."

Reagan was not happy about raising taxes or expanding government, and we certainly shouldn't forget that he had to work within the constraints placed upon him by a non-compliant Congress. But that doesn't change the fact that Reagan both increased spending and, after the initial cut, showed a willingness to raise taxes - exactly the sort of policy prescriptions so widely condemned by today's Reagan-reverent conservatives."

To the conservatives out there - you can spin it anyway you want. But facts are facts. The debt increased under Reagan, and so did the size of our government (as well as government spending).

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20030729-503544.html

If I'm not mistaken he raised the capital gains tax from 15% to 25% (??) or 28% (??).....in addition to a littany of other taxes he increased (payroll, gas) as the CBS article points out.

The thread title is about Reagan quotes so I posted some. Reagan was a compromiser and understood not to let the great be the enemy of the good. Republicans never had the House during his 8 years and only had the Senate for half his tenure IIRC. If he had his way, he would have enacted much larger spending cuts to coincide w/his tax cuts. Additionally, the number of times he raised taxes can be disputed because many of them are lumped into his final signing of a comprhensive tax reform bill. That's beside the point.

I agree that Reagan wasn't a purist or litmus test kind of guy but he certainly wasn't a moderate. I think folks are confusing pragmatism, which he demonstrated quite often, with being a moderate.

I think you're in denial because God forbid your hero was a moderate. I see moderate as a compliment. You seem to see it as an insult. That's the problem with the entire republican party nowadays.... well that and 95% of their platform is selfish and idiotic.

What is insulting is your consistent condescending tone. We have a difference of opinion and regardless of what you or I say, I don't think we are going to change our views. Additionally, what's selfish and idiotic is to blindly put your head in the sand and bankrupt future generations and continuing to play class warfare games. Reality is there are damn few moderates in EITHER party. The shrinking population of Blue Dog Democrats and moderate Republicans is equal and has lead us to an atmosphere that gridlock can't begin to describe.

But excuse me if Republicans are gun shy about a so called "balanced" approach when they've been burned in the past for the shell game of tax increases for spending cuts. The tax increase ALWAYS happen but the spending cuts don't. One of the Reagan tax increases was part of a deficit reduction package that was supposed to include spending reductions that never materialized. He lamented afterwards that was one of his biggest regrets.