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Banned
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Originally Posted by ngdawg
We can step back in time to Kennedy and his sending more than just a patrolling "police action" to Vietnam....by the time Johnson took over, we were so far into the pit, he couldn't see his way out....
Remember the "gas crisis" of about 1978-78? Wasn't Reagan. Carter.
In 1981, during Reagan's first full year, interest rates went up
in a bid to stop the "great inflation of the 60's and 70's". The recession that followed was dubbed the worst since the Great Depression, but was shortlived; within one year, the US experienced a "robust expansion".
Source
Every election year, we go through an "economic crisis". It's fear generated by the money traders but we blame it on whomever holds office. Of course, the president of time isn't totally blameless, but neither is he wholly responsible. But it's so much easier to blame one guy than memorize the names of all those who truly are responsible. |
ngdawg, I am glad that you are posting regulalry here. But I don't read the same "stuff" you do, I guess.....
From Kennedy's last two news conferences:
Quote:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9507
John F. Kennedy
448 - The President's News Conference of
October 31st, 1963
[3.] Q. Mr. President, back to the question of troop reductions, are any intended in the Far East at the present time, particularly in Korea, and is there any speedup in the withdrawal from Viet-Nam intended?
THE PRESIDENT. Well, as you know, when Secretary McNamara and General Taylor came back, they announced that we would expect to withdraw a thousand men from South Viet-Nam before the end of the year, and there has been some reference to that by General Harkins. If we are able to do that, that would be our schedule. I think the first unit or first contingent would be 250 men who are not involved in what might be called front-line operations. It would be our hope to lessen the number of Americans there by 1,000, as the training intensifies and is carried on in South Viet-Nam.....
....[29.] Q. Mr. President, in negotiating the limited nuclear test ban treaty we and the Russians avoided the issue of international inspection by limiting it to the three environments in which that, theoretically, was not required. Now we have joined at the U.N. in proposing a wider ban, including underground tests. Is there anything new in the state of the art of detection or in our understanding of the Soviet position that leads us to hope we can get anywhere with this approach?
THE PRESIDENT. I am doubtful that we can get any place. We are still insisting on inspection. The Soviet Union is still resisting inspection. And therefore, unless the art of seismology improves, I would think we would not get an agreement. Sometime it may improve so that it is not necessary for us to have the kind of detailed inspections that we believe necessary or perhaps the Soviet Union will change its policy. I would hope either event would occur. For the present, I am not optimistic.
Reporter: Thank you, Mr. President.
Note: President Kennedy's sixty-third news conference was held in the State Department Auditorium at 4 o'clock on Thursday afternoon, October 31, 1963.
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Quote:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9519
John F. Kennedy
459 - The President's News Conference of
November 14th, 1963
THE PRESIDENT. Good morning, gentlemen and ladies.
[1.] Q. Mr. President, how menacing do you regard the Cambodian threat to reject our foreign aid, and can that country be slipping into the Communist orbit?
THE PRESIDENT. Well, I regard it as serious. It is my hope that Prince Sihanouk, who must be concerned about the independence and the sovereignty of his country-he has after all been involved for many years in maintaining that independence-will not decide at this dangerous point in the world's affairs to surrender it. I would think that he is more concerned about Cambodian independence than we are. After all, he is a Cambodian. So my judgment is that in the long run he would protect that independence. It would be folly not to, and I don't think he is a foolish man.
[3.] Q. Mr. President, what are the prerequisites or conditions for resumption of some sort of trade with Red China?
THE PRESIDENT. We are not planning to trade with Red China in view of the policy that Red China pursues. When the Red Chinese indicate a desire to live at peace with the United States, with other countries surrounding it, then quite obviously the United States would reappraise its policies. We are not wedded to a policy of hostility to Red China. It seems to me Red China's policies are what create the tension between not only the United States and Red China but between Red China and India, between Red China and her immediate neighbors to the south, and even between Red China and other Communist countries.
[5.] Q. Mr. President, there have been published reports that General Harkins may have lost his usefulness in Viet-Nam because of his identification with the Diem regime and lack of contacts with the new generals running the country. Would you care to comment on that?
THE PRESIDENT. I think it is wholly untrue. I have complete confidence in him. He was just doing his job. I think he said in the interview yesterday he had seen Mr. Nhu, I think, only three times. He had seen President Diem on a number of occasions. That was his job, that is what he was sent for-to work with the government in power--that is what he will do with the new government. I have great confidence in General Harkins. There may be some who would like to see General Harkins go, but I plan to keep him there.
Q. Following up that, sir, would you give us your appraisal of the situation in South Viet-Nam now, since the coup, and the purposes for the Honolulu conference?
THE PRESIDENT. Because we do have a new situation there, and a new government, we hope, an increased effort in the war. The purpose of the meeting at Honolulu--Ambassador Lodge will be there, General Harkins will be there, Secretary McNamara and others, and then, as you know, later Ambassador Lodge will come here--is to attempt to assess the situation: what American policy should be, and what our aid policy should be, how we can intensify the struggle, how we can bring Americans out of there.
Now, that is our object, to bring Americans home, permit the South Vietnamese to maintain themselves as a free and independent country, and permit democratic forces within the country to operate--which they can, of course, much more freely when the assault from the inside, and which is manipulated from the north, is ended. So the purpose of the meeting in Honolulu is how to pursue these objectives.
Q. Mr. President, Madam Nhu has now left the United States, but indicated that she intends to return. Will we renew her tourist visa?
THE PRESIDENT. Yes.
Q. And if she asks for it, will we grant her permanent residence--
THE PRESIDENT. I think we'd certainly permit her to return to the United States, if she wishes to do so.
[6.] Q. Mr. President, year by year, the foreign aid program seems to encounter more and more resistance in the Congress. And this year we are seeing Senators who ordinarily in the past have gone along with the program--
THE PRESIDENT. Yes. This is the worst attack on foreign aid that we have seen since the beginning of the Marshall plan.
Q. In the event that one of these years the Congress, the arguments for foreign aid notwithstanding, surprises itself by voting the program out, what would we then do?
THE PRESIDENT. I think it would be a great mistake. Of course, some of the difficulty is where the President sits and where the Members of the Senate sit. It has been said very many times, and I have never questioned it, that the Senate and the Congress have every right to decide how much money should be appropriated. That is their constitutional right.
But on the other hand, the President bears particular responsibilities in the field of foreign policy. If there are failures in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, and South Viet-Nam, Laos, it is usually not a Senator who is selected to bear the blame, but it's the administration, the President of the United States.
I regard this--President Eisenhower regarded it, and President Truman--it is no coincidence that all three Presidents since this program began, and Presidential candidates-Mr. Nixon, Mr. Stevenson, Governor Dewey, that all of them, Governor Rockefeller today, others--it seems to me all recognize the importance of this program. It is because it is a very valuable arm of the United States in the field of foreign policy. I don't think it is recognized what an important influence this has.
Now, we spend $51 billion or $52 billion on defense. We spend $2 1/2 billion on the atomic energy program. We spend $5 bib lion on space, of which at least a good percentage has a military implication in the sense of our national security. We spend all of this money and yet we are going to deny the President of the United States a very valuable weapon in maintaining the influence of the United States in this very diversifted world.
I can't imagine anything more dangerous than to end this program. I can assure you that whoever is President of the United States succeeding me will support this program.
Now, the second point I want to make is that what we are now talking about is only a fourth of what we tried to do in the early fifties. What I said in the--I don't understand why we are suddenly so fatigued. I don't regard the struggle as over, and I don't think it is probably going to be over for this century. I think this is a continuing effort, and it is not a very heavy one. It is a fraction of our budget, a fraction of our gross national product. The gross national product of the United States has increased $100 billion, will have by the end of this year, in a 3-year period.
So what we are asking is a billion dollars less than in the average program since '47. The need today is greater, these countries are poorer, there's a good many more of them; and yet we are being denied, the President of the United States is being threatened with denying him a very important weapon in helping him meet his responsibility. The Congress has its responsibility. But in the field of foreign policy there are particular burdens placed on the President, whoever he may be.
The Supreme Court in the Curtis Rider case said that the President is the organ of the country in the field of foreign policy. I just want to say personally as President, and my predecessor said the same, this program is essential to the conduct of our foreign policy, and therefore I am asking the Congress of the United States to give me the means of conducting the foreign policy of the United States. And if they do not want to do so, then they should recognize that they are severely limiting my ability to protect the interest. That's how important I think this program is.
Q. Before you leave the subject, sir, would you comment just a bit further? It is still a fact that a negative action by a Congress is something that an administration has great difficulty in coping with. Has the administration, has the Government, looked ahead to that possibility and prepared against it?
THE PRESIDENT. No, I can't believe that the Congress of the United States is going to be so unwise unless we are going to retreat from the world. Are we going to give up in South Viet-Nam? Are we going to give up in Latin America?
I have said before that what we are talking about in the case of Latin America and the Alliance for Progress, for all of Latin America, is what the Soviet Union and the bloc are putting into Cuba alone. Now, can you tell me the United States is not able to do that? In addition, these amendments which are passed because they don't like a particular leader or a particular national policy as of the moment--it is a very changing world. Because they don't like the fishing policy we are going to decide to end all aid to the three countries in Latin America that are hardpressed, rather than permitting us to negotiate the matter out. But anyway, as I say, they have their responsibilities and I have mine. I am just trying to make it very clear that I cannot fulfill my responsibility in the field of foreign policy without this program.
Now, the most important program, of course, is our national security, but I don't want the United States to have to put troops there. What's going to happen in Laos if it collapses? Are they going to blame the Senate or are they going to blame me? I know who they are going to blame. So I need this program.
[21.] Q. Mr. President, in view of the changed situation in South Viet-Nam, do you still expect to bring back 1,000 troops before the end of the year, or has that figure been raised or lowered?
THE PRESIDENT. No, we are going to bring back several hundred before the end of the year. But I think on the question of the exact number, I thought we would wait until the meeting of November 20th.
Note: President Kennedy's sixty-fourth news conference was held in the State Department Auditorium at 11 a.m. on Thursday, November 14, 1963.
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Kennedy did not live to give another news conference because he died in Dallas, eight days later....
What did you like best about the "Reagan economic miracle", was it the huge increase in debt triggered by deep tax cuts and simultaneous increases in military spending? We still haven't paid back the $3-1/2 trillion, and the interest paid to service that debt has long since eclipsed any benefit from the "expansion" it helped to drive. It took more than 80 years to accumulated a national debt just under $1 trillion. Reagan racked up a quick $1-1/2 trillion and his successor, Bush, almost $2 trillion more.....
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Originally Posted by powerclown
I was dicking around at the time, much like Carter. Reagan's tax cuts and regulatory reforms led to some of the greatest economic times this country has ever known. He set into motion events that created 17 million new jobs, and cut black unemployment in half. Pretty impressive in my book.
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Yes, the national debt, just under $1 trillion when Reagan's first annual federal budget year began, only increased 4-1/2 times, by the time we were rid of 12 years of Reagan/Bush voodoo fiscal discipline.
In the year preceding the first Clinton managed federal budget, the years ending 9/30/93, the national debt had increased $390 billion in just 12 months.
At the end of the 7th Clinton managed budget year, on 9/30/00, the national debt increased just $18 billion in the previous 12 months, and unemployment was at it's lowest percentage level, ever.
Isn't it easier to "ramp up" job growth when you are increasing the national debt by $350 billion per year, on average over 12 years, than when you are reducing it, to an average of just $160 billion per year, over the subsequent seven year period?
Last edited by host; 03-01-2008 at 08:58 PM..
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