Labour Slumps to 3rd in poll

[Admiral Yi]

Reagan cut taxes and jacked military spending to the stratosphere.  I'm hard pressed to think of a single domestic spending initiative on his watch.  If you want to call that "big government" that's pretty dishonest.

[Habbaku]

Rrrright.

Why are you responding to it? 

[Fate]

Reagan cut taxes and jacked military spending to the stratosphere.  I'm hard pressed to think of a single domestic spending initiative on his watch.  If you want to call that "big government" that's pretty dishonest.

If you don't want to consider the military part of the government that's pretty dishonest.

[Admiral Yi]

If you don't want to consider the military part of the government that's pretty dishonest.

Both of our statements are true.

[Barrister]

[Ed Anger]

I'm surprised Spicy fell for Elmer Fudd's box trap.

[Neil]

Nixon cut the size of government? I know he created the EPA. What did he get rid of?

The Vietnam War.

[MadImmortalMan]

If he had a Republican Congress spending would have been even greater.   

Rrrright. 

Judging from the past few years of GOP Congress... 

[Fate]

If he had a Republican Congress spending would have been even greater.   

Rrrright. 

Judging from the past few years of GOP Congress... 

Congress would have approved an accelerated Death Star construction schedule.

[Sheilbh]

Erm. How much of that is related to winding down the Vietnam War and pushing expensive programs off the official books?

Nixon didn't really start winding down Vietnam until 1973 which was, what, 12 months before he resigned.  So it's not from there.  I don't know what you mean by the last point.

Reagan cut taxes and jacked military spending to the stratosphere.  I'm hard pressed to think of a single domestic spending initiative on his watch.  If you want to call that "big government" that's pretty dishonest.

Domestic spending increased but very lightly.  You're conflating two things in the other point.  Cutting taxes and not cutting spending contributes hugely to deficits - which increased hugely under Reagan.  And big military spending increases the size of the government and the number of civilian federal employees mildly increased under Reagan.  Saying defence spending doesn't count is like politicians saying they want to cut the size of discretionary, non-defence spending.  It's a nonsense because if you remove the mandatory programmes, he didn't change, and defence which he increased then there's fuck all left to cut.

Nixon on the other hand cut the national debt, put a hold or mildly shrank the size of government spending overall and decreased the number of civilian federal employees.  I think he's a far more convincing small government conservative because he made government smaller.

[derspiess]

Nixon on the other hand cut the national debt, put a hold or mildly shrank the size of government spending overall and decreased the number of civilian federal employees.  I think he's a far more convincing small government conservative because he made government smaller.

He *wanted* to make it bigger, though.  Don't forget he was pushing pretty hard for government-funded national health insurance.

I guess we're sort of talking past each other, though.  I'm more interested in political philosophies, and you're focusing on results, which the president doesn't always fully influence.

[derspiess]

Judging from the past few years of GOP Congress... 

That was Bush-43's 'Compassionate Conservatism' in play plus a couple wars.

[Sheilbh]

I'm more interested in political philosophies, and you're focusing on results, which the president doesn't always fully influence.

Well I think you have to judge them by the combination of their philosophy and their results.  I think if you just focus on results then you're right there are a lot of mitigating factors.  If you focus on philosophy alone then I think you end up saying well-intentioned people you agree with who are incompetent but philosophically okay - in short people like Bush II.