use Perl

• no (Score:1)

  by jjohn (22)

  America has always like to conflate circus freak shows and politicians. Although I don't have examples ready, eighteenth century American politics are full of dubious candidates. I'll wait to see what kind of governator Arnie is. Who knows? Perhaps he'll do an ok job. I'll be amazed if the Republican war on taxes (while spending gobs of money on the military and spook projects) has any positive long-term benefit for the country as a whole. Somehow, it just seems petty and self-serving.
  • Re:no (Score:2)

    by pudge (1)

    The concept is simple: cutting taxes puts more money in the hands of people which helps businesses grow which creates more tax revenue. You can end up with the same amount of increased revenue and help taxpayers at the same time.
    
    It has worked in the past. It worked under JFK, and it worked under Reagan. Will it work again? Time will tell, but to imply it doesn't make sense is to ignore cases where it's actually worked as planned.
    • Re:no (Score:1)

      by jjohn (22)

      I know that I shouldn't reply to this, but I have to -- ears burning.

      [cutting taxes to spur the economy] has worked in the past. It worked under JFK, and it worked under Reagan.

      There were two recession under Reagans 8 years in office. Crime increased in 7 of his eight years in office (I'm excluding crimes that happen inside the White House, like Iran-Contra) and the crime continued to increase under Bush Sr. The crime dropped dramatically during the Clinton years (again, I'm excluding activities in t
      • Re:no (Score:1)

        by jordan (120) on 2003.10.10 5:13 (#24803) Homepage Journal

        • There were two recession under Reagans 8 years in office.

        
        One of those recessions (January 1980 to July 1980) was inhereted from Carter and responded almost immediately to Reagan's tax breaks. It was the briefest recession in the history of this country. If it wasn't tax policy that cured this recession what was it?
        

        • Crime increased in 7 of his eight years in office...

        
        Continuing a trend that had been going on since the 50's. This was due to Reagan's economic policies?
        

        • Reagan's economic policies were a disaster. Full stop.

        
        Huh? The economy grew very quickly under Reagan. We saw a real GDP growth of nearly 4 % annually between 1981 and 1989. Higher than the 3.6% average we saw under Clinton. Hard to see where you can claim the Reagain economic policies were a "disaster".
        

        The Clinton year expansions increased dramatically after 1994. It could be argued that that has more to do with Congress becoming Republican and enforcing fiscal discipline as any policy of Clinton's.
        

        I'm surprised you didn't pull out the old saw about the increases in Deficit spending under Reagan. Well, that wasn't tax policy. Tax Revenues nearly doubled under Reagan due to the robust economy. That was lack of fiscal discipline on the part of Congress that increased total expenditures by nearly 3 fold over the same period. This even after promising to tie tax raises that they forced Reagan to take to spending cuts, which somehow failed to materialize.

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