"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
m...

Nobody likes the idea of paying more taxes, but the national debt is not
going to be paid down just with spending cuts (although clearly deep cuts
are needed). When Ronald Reagan became Governor of California he moved
to
correct the state's finances in two ways--cutting spending *and*
increasing
tax revenues. It is striking that today's Republicans refuse to consider
the second half of that formula.

Not at all.

So various leaders of the Republican Party saying over and over that tax
increases are just not on the table doesn't count as them refusing to
consider increases in revenue as Gov. Reagan did?

Under Bush 41 and RR, the Dems in Congress got their tax
increase but, if you look at the actual figures, there was no
year-over-year decrease in the growth in spending let alone a decrease
in actual spending.

Maybe because the budgets proposed by Reagan involved massive spending
increases (Reagan's budgets grew by almost $400 billion a year over his
presidency). I know, you want to blame this on the Dems in Congress. But
as I said before, if you can demonstrate that the spending authorized by
Congress was consistently much greater than the spending requested by the
Reagan White House, cool, I'd love to see the documentation for that.
Congress did spend more than Reagan requested in seven of his eight years in
the White House, but the average over his two terms was about two point
eight percent and it is not credible that the national debt tripled during
the Reagan administration because the Dems in Congress outspent the White
House by less than three percent. Apparently Reagan was really bothered by
deficit spending, it went against his grain. But guess what, he did it
anyway, and his budgets get laid at his door, not that of Congress.

(at least according to the Stat Abstract). Fool me
once shame on you... or maybe the proper response is Whoian-- "won't get
fooled again."

As I thought I made clear, both spending cuts and increases in revenue will
be needed to pay down the debt. Since the Repubs can block spending in the
House if the Dems try to sneak through increases or even try to maintain
current levels, refusing to increase the debt ceiling (as they did
repeatedly during the Bush administration) looks more like political theatre
than anything else. Cantor and his crew just killed a four trillion dollar
cut which Boehner apparently was happy with. Of course a default will mess
up the economy so much that increasing the debt ceiling will seem mild in
comparison.