The only similarities between Hitler and Reagan is that they were in a position to lead, and were popular. I don't mind the lecture on history, just don't like it gradually re written, but you go girl.
Ronald Reagan
by free2beme 45 Replies latest jw friends
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BurnTheShips
Reagen did cut spending.
He did cut welfare.
However on his so called "reduction in government".
http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/08/news/economy/reagan_years_taxes/index.htm
Soon after taking office in 1981, Reagan signed into law one of the largest tax cuts in the postwar period.
That legislation -- phased in over three years -- pushed through a 23% across-the-board cut of individual income tax rates. It also called for tax brackets, the standard deduction and personal exemptions to be adjusted for inflation starting in 1984. That would reduce "bracket creep" since the high inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s meant incomes rose very fast, pushing taxpayers into ever higher brackets even though the real value of their income hadn't changed.
The 1981 bill also made certain business deductions more generous.
In 1986, Reagan lowered individual income tax rates again, this time in landmark tax reform legislation.
As a result of the 1981 and 1986 bills, the top income tax rate was slashed from 70% to 28%.
Despite the aggressive tax cutting, Reagan couldn't ignore the budget deficit, which was burgeoning.
After Reagan's first year in office, the annual deficit was 2.6% of gross domestic product. But it hit a high of 6% in 1983, stayed in the 5% range for the next three years, and fell to 3.1% by 1988. (By comparison, this year it's projected to be 9% but is expected to drop considerably thereafter.)
So, despite his public opposition to higher taxes, Reagan ended up signing off on several measures intended to raise more revenue.
"Reagan was certainly a tax cutter legislatively, emotionally and ideologically. But for a variety of political reasons, it was hard for him to ignore the cost of his tax cuts," said tax historian Joseph Thorndike.
Two bills passed in 1982 and 1984 together "constituted the biggest tax increase ever enacted during peacetime," Thorndike said.
The bills didn't raise more revenue by hiking individual income tax rates though. Instead they did it largely through making it tougher to evade taxes, and through "base broadening" -- that is, reducing various federal tax breaks and closing tax loopholes.
For instance, more asset sales became taxable and tax-advantaged contributions and benefits under pension plans were further limited.
"What people forget about Ronald Reagan was that he very much converted to base broadening as a means of reducing deficits and as a means of tax reform," said Eugene Steuerle, an Institute Fellow at the Urban Institute who had helped lay the groundwork for tax reform in 1986 and served as a deputy assistant Treasury secretary during Reagan's second term.
There were other notable tax increases under Reagan.
In 1983, for example, he signed off on Social Security reform legislation that, among other things, accelerated an increase in the payroll tax rate, required that higher-income beneficiaries pay income tax on part of their benefits, and required the self-employed to pay the full payroll tax rate, rather than just the portion normally paid by employees.
The tax reform of 1986, meanwhile, wasn't designed to increase federal tax revenue. But that didn't mean that no one's taxes went up. Because the reform bill eliminated or reduced many tax breaks and shelters, high-income tax filers who previously paid little ended up with bigger tax bills.
"Some of these taxpayers were substantial contributors to the Republican Party and to the president's re-election campaign, and had direct access to the White House. Reagan rebuffed their pleas," wrote J. Roger Mentz, the Treasury assistant secretary for tax policy in 1986, in a Tax Notes commentary last year.
All told, the tax increases Reagan approved ended up canceling out much of the reduction in tax revenue that resulted from his 1981 legislation.
Annual federal tax receipts during his presidency averaged 18.2% of GDP, a smidge below the average under President Carter -- and a smidge above the 40-year average today.
When it came to domestic actions, Reagan was not what the left, or the right, make him out to be. There were hundreds of thousands more Federal workers in 1988 than there were in 1980.
And it is difficult to attempt a conversation with fools that descend into Hitler comparisons.
BTS
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FlyingHighNow
He did cut welfare.
He cut people who were gravely ill from social security benefits. He cut very mentally ill people from social security and sent them out into the streets to be homeless. You're giving that a thumbs up. Burns, I think you are really too nice to be a Social Darwinist.
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FlyingHighNow
This attitude is what I am talking about. In politics, particularly in the USA, there are those who espouse the same philosophy. It began to really rear it's ugly head during Reagen's administration and it's very prevalent in the Republican party today.
"This poster is from the 1930’s, and promotes the Nazi monthly Neues Volk (New People}, the organ of the party’s racial office. The text reads: “This genetically ill person will cost our people’s community 60,000 marks over his lifetime. Citizens, that is your money. Read Neues Volk, the monthly of the racial policy office of the NSDAP.”
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FlyingHighNow
Not sure why Hitler is brought into this discussion. Are you saying that because Reagan stepped up and said that the country was better than we thought we were, and we responded to that in a positive way that he somehow compares to Hitler?
Where did you read anything I said that remotely sounds like what you just wrote? It was his cold hearted policies toward helpless people that compared to Hitler.
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darthfader
No matter what social/entitlement programs you cut, there will always be those individuals that are effected critically and some are still able to "game the system" and live off taxes of others.
Wikipedia: Reagan also attempted to increase the solvency of Social Security by cutting disability and survivor benefits, and by increasing the FICA payroll withholding tax.
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FlyingHighNow
There is so much waste in government that the programs that care for the weakest, most helpless Americans never need to be cut.
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BizzyBee
The former wunkderkind David Stockman has some very interesting things to say about current economics. Listen to him.
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darthfader
FHN, Fair enough, what areas would you cut?
Bizz, I already have, he stated that since we dont have the political will to cut spending it's insane to cut (on in this case extend the Bush cuts) taxes. We are only delaying the expense for the next generation - they would become "Tax slaves". I think the taxes that government currently collects is about all the current economy can support. It's the spending that is the root problem. And if you raise taxes on the top 5$ of income people, they have the economic flexibility to move their cash/income elsewhere.
