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From: simard@loral.UUCP (Ray Simard)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Fuzzy headed liberal
Message-ID: <610@loral.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 3-Nov-84 14:53:36 EST
Article-I.D.: loral.610
Posted: Sat Nov  3 14:53:36 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 5-Nov-84 20:57:38 EST
References: <570@loral.UUCP> <924@opus.UUCP>
Reply-To: simard@loral.UUCP (Ray Simard)
Organization: Loral Instrumentation, San Diego, CA
Lines: 65
Summary: 

In article <924@opus.UUCP> rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) writes:
>Seriously (barely), when are you thick-headed conservatives going to wake
>up to the fact that if you spend more dollars than you got, you go into
>debt?  Arithmetic doesn't start working backwards when you go over a
>billion, and dollars spent on defense don't count as income.
>-- 

	Well, looks like the name-calling has come full circle.  Your
head is either fuzzy, pointy or thick.

	The response to the above has been expressed before, but somehow
missed by the writer.  I'll repeat:

	The deficit is not caused by low taxes - it's caused by high
spending!  Period.  Only.  Solely.  Nothing else.

	The approach of the past 50 years has been to spend other
people's money to solve social programs.  We've spend the money.  Then
spent more.  And more.  And more.  And no solution yet.  Look:

	1.	In 1966, when the "War on Poverty" began, there
		were 28.5 million poor, representing 14.7% of the
		population.

	2.	Since then, we have spent half-a-trillion dollars on
		"poverty".  The benefit from that spending: in 1982
		there were 34.4 billion poor, or 15% of the population.
		Allowing that some of these were so because of the
		then-current recession, the results are about even.

	In simple terms, FIVE-HUNDRED-BILLIONS of the dollars that you
and I earned at our chosen professions were taken from us to help the
poor.  If that had worked, fine.  The actual, empirical results of that
spending:  NOTHING!   ZIP!   ZILCH!  It's as if it had never been spent.

	We got poorer; the poor stayed poor.  Any wonder I meekly suggest
we stop doing what we've been doing?  And that Ronald Reagan is not
selfish and heartless for concluding similarly?

	The fact is: no amount of government activity will ever cure
poverty.  There are legitimate areas of involvement, but not where it
has been involved.  Time to look at the facts and stop doing what looks
good, and start doing what works.  And, on the whole, Reagan's approaches
have worked:

	1.	Who were the worst victims of inflation?  The elderly
		poor on fixed incomes.  Reagan's is the first administration
		to implement policies that helped reduce inflation by
		nearly two-thirds in decades.  That's a win.

	2.	Deficits are high.  They are also applying anti-spending
		pressure on the profligates in Congress.  Maybe, just maybe,
		they'll get the truth: THEY are the engineers of the deficit;
		not Reagan.

	3.	Unemployment, while not better than when Reagan took office
		is neither any worse.  And it is trending favorably.


-- 
[     I am not a stranger, but a friend you haven't met yet     ]

Ray Simard
Loral Instrumentation, San Diego
{ucbvax, ittvax!dcdwest}!sdcsvax!sdcc6!loral!simard