Willie- Regan did have economic growth during his term as it went from a GDP growth of -0.3% in 1980 to 4.1% in 1988, but he also grew the national debt from $997 billion to $2.85 trillion. This led to the U.S. moving from the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor nation. Also, he did like to spend- The federal government spent an average of 21.6% GDP from 1982–89, versus the 1974–1981 average of 20.3% GDP.
I do have a question for you though- do you honestly feel that there should be no regulations for businesses?
I actually wasn't planning to post any more in this thread, having said my piece and moving on. I don't want to be a broken record, I try not to participate in the never ending pissing contests, and I don't want to continue with the overwhelming amount of political talk in the main forum. But since you asked me a direct question, I'll respond.
Overall, regulations are an economic anchor. We have regulations to regulate regulations. Regulations increase the costs of doing business, and that simply doesn't grow the economy.
We increased regulations on banks after the 2007 banking crisis. The government now has it's hands in the pockets of all mortgage decisions, the idiocy imposed by mortgage regulations is borderline insanity. The loops good and smart and qualified people have to jump through is shameful. Let banks make lending decisions, let investors assume the risk, and let them lose money when they make bad decisions. Instead we had / have government encouraging those bad decisions by guaranteeing them, and then trying to manage how and when a bad decision can be made. No risk, all reward.
The same regulations make it harder for small businesses to get loans. The loans qualified businesses were able to obtain fairly painlessly have dried up. Now you have private loan companies filling that void, but charging much higher interest rates.
Credit card regulations hurt the people they're supposed to help, making it harder for them to obtain credit.
Automobile manufacturing regulations make manufacturing more expensive, slowing sales growth.
Energy regulations destroyed jobs and increased the costs of energy, and energy is a very important variable in economic growth. High costs slow it down.
Obamacare is an unmitigated across the boards clusterfuck. The costs and TIME wasted trying to enforce and implement it created a great deal of uncertainty and slowed economic growth. The money it directly and indirectly took out of the economy is a large contributor to our lost economic decade.
Everyone knows the climate is changing, it has been changing for 2 billion years or so. Global warming as been happening for about 17,000 years now. Man made global warming is hyperbole, and fruitless regulations to alter the course of climate change once again stunt economic growth. If one scientist can explain why the next cycle of global cooling is not right around the corner, I'll listen. Cycles of 70,000 years of cooling followed by 20,000 years of warming have supposedly been ongoing since the birth of planet earth. Maybe 20,000 or 10,000 or even only 1,000 of such cycles, but why is all of that suddenly changing? I'm going to suggest we spend money to help mankind survive the next pending cycle of global cooling, and stop regulating everything under the pretense of man made global warming
Government is supposed to stay out of the way of economic growth, that's the best thing they can do. Instead career politicians think they can actually micro manage everything in the world, it's surreal from where I'm sitting. They simply have no idea. Our founding fathers didn't want an over-burdensome federal government, they did their best to allow states rights. But we've lost their compass, and the federal government has become an economic anchor, their primary objective seemingly to buy votes and take care of the special interests that give them power.
It's all a charade
