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Tag Archives: Ronald Reagan
Weekly Address
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How You Can Tell When the Deficit is a Problem
A Lot More Important Than the Federal Deficit.
A few days ago, I was stuck in the car for a long drive. Because of the complete absence of progressive talk from Orlando’s airwaves, I had no real choice but to listen to the nasal maundering of Mark Levin on the radio. Levin was very upset about the federal deficit.
Interestingly, Levin was a high-level appointee in the Reagan Administration. Dick Cheney, who was Reagan’s Defense Secretary and later the Vice President, said 10 years ago that “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”
I must concede that it is rather difficult to reconcile the conflicting statements of these two gentlemen, Messrs. Levin and Cheney. Evidently, they believe deficits are a terrible tragedy when a Democrat is President, and a wonderful gift when a Republican is President.
There has got to be a more objective standard than that.
Here’s one: the federal deficit is a problem when long-term interest rates are high, and not much of a problem when long-term interest rates are low. The Federal Reserve dictates short-term interest rates, but long-term rates still are, pretty much, set by the market, in its usual ruthless fashion. (Which is why James Carville said that after he dies, he “want[s] to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.”)
When long-term interest rates are high, a federal deficit competes against and “crowds out” private borrowing and investment. When long-term interest rates are low, the federal deficit is not taking away from borrowing by the private sector. On the contrary, the federal deficit is acting as a needed boost to aggregate demand in the economy, an action also known as “fiscal policy.” When the economy is slack, every dollar of reduction in federal spending takes three or four dollars off of our gross national product.
So, by that test, where are we? Well, as I explained last week, long-term U.S. interest rates are at their lowest in history. So what does that tell you about the deficit?
Sorry – I didn’t mention that there was going to be a quiz.
When Ronald Reagan was President, long-term interest rates sometimes exceeded 15% – ten times as high as long-term interest rates today. The market was screaming at the top of its lungs that the Reagan deficit was too high. And today? Silence.
Look around the world. The ten-year note in Greece yields a little less than 30%. Pakistan, 13%. Portugal and Venezuela, 12%. In those countries, the bond market is shouting, “Cut that out!”
Not here.
Thanks to all the deficit-mongering by Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Fox “News,” etc., a lot of Americans are scared by the federal deficit. The advice from Democratic pollsters is to go along with this hand-wringing. But there is an alternative: Explain to the American people when a federal deficit is bad, and when it is not.
Like I just did.
Courage,
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Pizza is a vegetable? Tell Congress to Promote Healthy School Meals
We thought we fixed this when Ronald Reagan declared ketchup to be a vegetable and most of our country laughed out loud. 
But apparently not.
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2F2w9NMwavBAhxQgjDpoZ9NcufT5FYZsE
Late last night, Congress unveiled change to the National School Lunch program that will allow a few dabs of tomato paste to be considered a vegetable which means that a pizza is back on our kids’ tables and obesity is here to stay.
Congress chose to look past the straightforward recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences‘ Institute of Medicine and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and instead get in bed with the American Frozen Food Institute and the National Potato Council to gut major policy recommendations from the bill. This unhealthy serving of corporate special interests will hurt America‘s children — all 55 million of our kids, particularly poor and disadvantaged kids who have to count on school for their lunches.
Our nation’s schoolchildren deserve better. Tell Congress to support the USDA’s work to improve schools meals. The health of our nation’s schoolchildren is simply too important to be left to special interest groups like the American Frozen Food Institute or the National Potato Council.
But don’t just listen to Earth Day Network on this one. Over 100 retired generals and admirals recently declared that the dire state of our nation’s school food is a national security concern. Why? One-third of all applicants to the U.S. military are turned down because they are simply “too fat to fight.”
The USDA had proposed school nutrition standards that would have doubled the overall amount of fruits and vegetables and would have increased whole grains and low-fat dairy, while reducing sodium, unhealthy fats and excess calories. Yet, lobbying from special interest groups has once again derailed some of these critically important improvements-improvements that would have given our kids a fighting chance.
Let the USDA finish its job of helping schools improve the nutritional quality of their meals. Tell Congress to get off the payrolls of those FAT cats and back on the side of our children. http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=2qyDe9WZrcbUkgWGnKl%2FONcufT5FYZsE
– The Earth Day Network Team
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Conservatives Urge GOP to Raise Debt Ceiling
By ThinkProgress War Room on Jul 22, 2011 at 4:55 pm
Default Denialists Called Out By Conservatives
We are now 11 days away from a default on our obligations, and House Republicans appear no closer to agreeing to increase the debt ceiling than they were weeks ago. The business community and other conservatives appear to be reacting to this default denialism with increasing alarm. Here’s a rundown of some of the right-wing calls to raise the debt ceiling.
We have been telling you for weeks and months that defaulting on our debt is not an option – it has real, immediate, and potentially catastrophic consequences. […]
The result from political inaction could be devastating.
Failure to raise the debt ceiling and the ensuing default and inability of our country to pay its bills as they come due would have harsh implications for the dollar, the international and domestic financial system, economic growth and job creation. It is critically important that our leaders arrive at a deal to avoid both the negative consequences of a default and address our federal debt and large annual budget deficits in a responsible way.
Now is the time for our political leaders to put aside partisan differences and act in the nation’s best interests. It is time to pull together rather than pull apart.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R)
But they’ve got to get this done immediately or the uncertainty for the business community is going to be just devastating to our country.
Mesa Arizona Mayor Scott Smith (R), Vice President, U.S. Conference of Mayors
Anything that upsets the potential for any kind of recovery creates huge problems for the city… We’re sort of at the bottom of the food chin. When you have someone out of work, when you have someone who’s homeless, when you have someone with mental health issues, any interruption, anything that disrupts the economy, hurts our ability to help them.
Many of the social ills that we experience, you can’t just ignore. We have people who are homeless, we have people who are unemployed. They don’t just go away when governments cut their budgets…These are human beings, they still have needs, they still have problems…Our biggest concern is when there’s an across the board cut in spending without thinking about these different needs, you end up paying more.
Evening Brief: Important Stories That You May Have Missed
Although GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has recently remarked that he doesn’t “see carbon as a pollutant,” he certainly regulated carbon dioxide like one while he was governor of Massachusetts.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) defended the Gang of Six’s deficit-reduction proposal with the promise that only “the people sucking off the program are going to be the ones that lose.”
The real sticking point for conservatives opposed to the IOM’s recent recommendations on health care plans isn’t abortion — it’s contraception.
Pulitzer-prize winning undocumented immigrant Jose Antonio Vargas had his driver’s license revoked by the state of Washington.
A top Iowa Republican and former Bob Vander Plaats ally tells the pro-discrimination crusader that he and his organization’s “credibility is waning to the point of no impact.”
David Leonhardt is the new New York Times DC Bureau Chief.
Blue Bunny Ice Cream, whose CEO Mike Wells has close ties to Bob Vander Plaats, is feeling the heat over his support for the Iowa FAMiLY LEADER.
Ohio’s unemployment rate rises for the first time in 15 months as Republican Gov. John Kasich’s budget cuts go into effect.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) criticizes President Obama for cutting NASA’s shuttle missions. In reality, it was a former president from Texas who ended the program.
NewsCorrupt: New MoveOn Ad Calls For Congressional Investigation of News Corp
Be a Seed for Change 
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