Why social conservatives want Romney to run again

[Ulaven_Demorte]

First off, I don't expect a liberal like you to understand anything about what Republicans will or should do. Ronald Reagan was not an establishment candidate, and he won by landslide, So don't tell me a conservative can't be elected, your phony definition of what the "fringe" constitutes, notwithstanding.

Who's your Reagan? Scott Walker? He hasn't a chance in hell of winning. All his competitors have to do is point to the economic mess that is Wisconsin since he's taken the reins.

Reagan appealed to the moderates and his celebrity status didn't hurt. If Reagan ran today he would be purged before the primaries as being too liberal.

 

[unregistered]

 

[KingOrfeo]

No he wouldn't.

Why not?

 

[unregistered]

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

No he wouldn't.

Sure he would. here are just ten reasons why.

1. Reagan was a serial tax raiser. As governor of California, Reagan “signed into law the largest tax increase in the history of any state up till then.” Meanwhile, state spending nearly doubled. As president, Reagan “raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office,” including four times in just two years. As former GOP Senator Alan Simpson, who called Reagan “a dear friend,” told NPR, “Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times in his administration — I was there.” “Reagan was never afraid to raise taxes,” said historian Douglas Brinkley, who edited Reagan’s memoir. Reagan the anti-tax zealot is “false mythology,” Brinkley said.

2. Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit. During the Reagan years, the debt increased to nearly $3 trillion, “roughly three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether.” Reagan enacted a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously. Despite the conservative myth that tax cuts somehow increase revenue, the government went deeper into debt and Reagan had to raise taxes just a year after he enacted his tax cut. Despite ten more tax hikes on everything from gasoline to corporate income, Reagan was never able to get the deficit under control.

3. Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. Unemployment jumped to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level. Meanwhile, income inequality exploded. Despite the myth that Reagan presided over an era of unmatched economic boom for all Americans, Reagan disproportionately taxed the poor and middle class, but the economic growth of the 1980’s did little help them. “Since 1980, median household income has risen only 30 percent, adjusted for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled,” the New York Times’ David Leonhardt noted.

4. Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously. Reagan promised “to move boldly, decisively, and quickly to control the runaway growth of federal spending,” but federal spending “ballooned” under Reagan. He bailed out Social Security in 1983 after attempting to privatize it, and set up a progressive taxation system to keep it funded into the future. He promised to cut government agencies like the Department of Energy and Education but ended up adding one of the largest — the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, which today has a budget of nearly $90 billion and close to 300,000 employees. He also hiked defense spending by over $100 billion a year to a level not seen since the height of the Vietnam war.

5. Reagan did little to fight a woman’s right to choose. As governor of California in 1967, Reagan signed a bill to liberalize the state’s abortion laws that “resulted in more than a million abortions.” When Reagan ran for president, he advocated a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited all abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother, but once in office, he “never seriously pursued” curbing choice.

6. Reagan was a “bellicose peacenik.” He wrote in his memoirs that “[m]y dream…became a world free of nuclear weapons.” “This vision stemmed from the president’s belief that the biblical account of Armageddon prophesied nuclear war — and that apocalypse could be averted if everyone, especially the Soviets, eliminated nuclear weapons,” the Washington Monthly noted. And Reagan’s military buildup was meant to crush the Soviet Union, but “also to put the United States in a stronger position from which to establish effective arms control” for the the entire world — a vision acted out by Regean’s vice president, George H.W. Bush, when he became president.

7. Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants. Reagan signed into law a bill that made any immigrant who had entered the country before 1982 eligible for amnesty. The bill was sold as a crackdown, but its tough sanctions on employers who hired undocumented immigrants were removed before final passage. The bill helped 3 million people and millions more family members gain American residency. It has since become a source of major embarrassment for conservatives.

8. Reagan illegally funneled weapons to Iran. Reagan and other senior U.S. officials secretly sold arms to officials in Iran, which was subject to a an arms embargo at the time, in exchange for American hostages. Some funds from the illegal arms sales also went to fund anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua — something Congress had already prohibited the administration from doing. When the deals went public, the Iran-Contra Affair, as it came to be know, was an enormous political scandal that forced several senior administration officials to resign.

9. Reagan vetoed a comprehensive anti-Apartheid act. which placed sanctions on South Africa and cut off all American trade with the country. Reagan’s veto was overridden by the Republican-controlled Senate. Reagan responded by saying “I deeply regret that Congress has seen fit to override my veto,” saying that the law “will not solve the serious problems that plague that country.”

10. Reagan helped create the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. Reagan fought a proxy war with the Soviet Union by training, arming, equipping, and funding Islamist mujahidin fighters in Afghanistan. Reagan funneled billions of dollars, along with top-secret intelligence and sophisticated weaponry to these fighters through the Pakistani intelligence service. The Talbian and Osama Bin Laden — a prominent mujahidin commander — emerged from these mujahidin groups Reagan helped create, and U.S. policy towards Pakistan remains strained because of the intelligence services’ close relations to these fighters. In fact, Reagan’s decision to continue the proxy war after the Soviets were willing to retreat played a direct role in Bin Laden’s ascendancy.

#7 would be the kiss of death.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

Been reading the liars over at Media matters again?

No dummy. I listed Walker's "accomplishments" in the other thread, which you ran from like your ass was on fire.

Obviously you've been buying into Walker's PR bullshit without actually looking at the facts. No suprise there.

Here's the post, linked and everything for you to ignore again.

Scott Walker of Wisconsin? You must be talking about some other Scott Walker.

Because Wisconsin job growth has ranked at or near the bottom of the Midwest, personal income growth has been last in the Midwest and 44th nationally, and the budget is in shambles.

Walker likes to say that the state has a budget surplus, but to make such a claim requires some really irresponsible accounting. It’s the equivalent of showing off $100 in your wallet, claiming you’re flush with cash, but failing to mention the $2000 credit card bill you know is coming at the end of the month. Wisconsin's transportation budget has a $750 million hole in it, the healthcare budget is $760 million in the red, and that’s all on top of a $1.8 billion general budget deficit.

Wisconsin cut education, cut healthcare, cut wages for state employees, cut services for the needy, increased taxes on the poor, and cut taxes for the rich. And after all that cutting, Wisconsin’s budget deficit is now in the billions.

Sounds like someone with a record to run on.

 

[unregistered]

 

[RobDownSouth]

Left wing BS

Cowardly Marine cannot refudiate, so he denigrates.
Coward

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

Left wing BS

Which of those ten things would you say were untrue? All are verifiable, which is probably why you just dismissed the entire list out of hand. I didn't even get into Reagan's serious Israel problem.

You have a serious aversion to facts.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Left wing BS

Which points do you specifically deny, and why?

 

[unregistered]

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

And at the end of those two years, another Democrat will be in the WH, and you, against all evidence, will be screaming that the Pub nominee lost because he wasn't RW enough.

And it will be Jim Webb and Joe Mancion. Youre gonna be very unhappy when it happens, so will Hillary and the Cherokee.

 

[KingOrfeo]

For one, Reagan spent more because he had fund the military that Jimmy Carter destroyed...

And no fiscal conservative would have done that, nor considered that he "had" to.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

For one, Reagan spent more because he had fund the military that Jimmy Carter destroyed...just like the next President is going to have to do with this military.

They forget Democrats controlled Congress while Reagan was President, and he hadda bribe them to defeat the Russians.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

For one, Reagan spent more because he had fund the military that Jimmy Carter destroyed...just like the next President is going to have to do with this military.

Bull shit, he was trying to out-spend the Russians and push them to the brink of bankruptcy with a cold war arms race. The drawing down of the nation's military after the end of the Vietnam war wasn't "gutting" anything, it was returning to peacetime levels. We have no need to maintain a huge standing Army in times of peace.

In fact: The Founding Fathers distrusted standing armies.

For example, James Madison said:

In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.

Madison also noted that never-ending war tends to destroy both liberty and prosperity:

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied: and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

 

[KingOrfeo]

They forget Democrats controlled Congress while Reagan was President, and he hadda bribe them to defeat the Russians.

But he did not have to "bribe them" with defense spending.

 

[KingOrfeo]

In fact: The Founding Fathers distrusted standing armies.

And that is why we have a 2nd Amendment. They wanted to rely mainly on the militia in wartime, and in those days that mean bringing your own weapons from home.

 

[unregistered]

 

[KingOrfeo]

Nonetheless, the "founders" left in the hands of the congress the power...

Yes, because they understood that a government that lacks the power to wage war is no government at all. That does not mean they liked the idea.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

Yes, because they understood that a government that lacks the power to wage war is no government at all. That does not mean they liked the idea.

Nor does it mean that they would approve of a defense spending that totals 20% of the government's annual budget. An amount that exceeds the combined defense budgets of the next 13 highest spending countries in the world.

The defense budget is completely out of control and has been for several decades. It's long past time to trim the fat from the "conservative's" sacred cow.

 

[BotanyBoy]

From a UK perspective - and goodness knows we are right-wing by European and even domestic post-war standards - what is astonishing is that someone with Jeb Bush's views is not considered a social conservative in the US. The mind boggles.

Jeb is a fucking communist by a large portion of the RW dip shit nut job standards.

First off, I don't expect a liberal like you to understand anything about what Republicans will or should do. Ronald Reagan was not an establishment candidate, and he won by landslide, So don't tell me a conservative can't be elected, your phony definition of what the "fringe" constitutes, notwithstanding.

Reagan would be about the RINO that Romney is.....he loved spending, raised taxes, brought socialized HC to the US, was staunchly pro union and education.

Reagan was a flaming liburhul communist by today's conservitard standards.

For one, Reagan spent more because he had fund the military that Jimmy Carter destroyed...just like the next President is going to have to do with this military.

No he DIDN'T....that's the big lie.

Just like the next (R) will be FORCED to spend unnecessarily on "defense" despite the fact that gloves we could whip the fucking piss out of anyone we want in a matter of HOURS for the next 10 years at least.

Why exactly do we NEED to spend so much on defense when not a single fucking nation on the planet can hold a match to us? I'm betting you deflect way the fuck off of that for the sake of himz precious GOP, party before country all the time every time

 

[SgtSpiderMan]

From a UK perspective - and goodness knows we are right-wing by European and even domestic post-war standards - what is astonishing is that someone with Jeb Bush's views is not considered a social conservative in the US. The mind boggles.

When compared to Michelle Bachman or Rick Santorum even Darth Vader isn't considered a social conservative.

 

[BotanyBoy]

When compared to Michelle Bachman or Rick Santorum even Darth Vader isn't considered a social conservative.

Vader = commie dictator *nod*

Except when his humanity comes through to save Jr. at the last second...that was really conservatism coming though channeled by St.Ronnie no less.

 

[Que]

When compared to Michelle Bachman or Rick Santorum even Darth Vader isn't considered a social conservative.

Cite?

Considered by whom? I have not seen that comparison made.

I don't think "they" said that." When did they say that? Where did they say that?

 

[Disgustipated]

First off, I don't expect a liberal like you to understand anything about what Republicans will or should do. Ronald Reagan was not an establishment candidate, and he won by landslide, So don't tell me a conservative can't be elected, your phony definition of what the "fringe" constitutes, notwithstanding.

So who will the Pubs nominate? It's getting close.