"my hero"

[thecolorblue]

John McCain keeps lauding Ronald Reagan as "my hero." This is a tip of the hat to all those conservatives out there; anyone who supports trickle down economics just leaps at the mention of Reagan. Meanwhile, I think it's important to remember what Reagan's legacy was for this country, specifically with regard to homelessness, social services and

Comments

[easwaran]

The thing I found really weird was that in this last debate, right after calling Reagan "my hero", McCain said, "you know who's my hero? Teddy Roosevelt", or something to that effect

[thecolorblue]

the rich are more likely to put some of their extra income into hiring more people for their businesses than the poor will.

that's just not true. many studies of how rich people spend their money show that they tend to spend very large chunks of it on single things -- ridiculously expensive clothing/jewelery/spas/food. these things don't benefit poor people at all. and think of the cars that rich folks drive -- Benz, Porsche, Lamborghini -- nothing made in the U.S. to me, it seems like a cycle of the very rich putting their money back into the pockets of the very rich or into foreign countries (globalization?). little for trickle down in the United States.

also, i'm not opposed to lower taxes, i'm just opposed to a flat tax rate. if you make a lot of money, you have more money to spare to help out the government (instead of buying that 8th house). in many other countries/cultures this is how it works. the rich people feel a social obligation to give back to those less fortunate.

[easwaran]

You're right that rich people spend loads of money on things that don't benefit poor people at all, like the ones you mentioned. But the thing is, they also put some money into hiring employees that happen to be poor. There is some trickle down - I think that's undeniable. The problem is just that it's not nearly as much as the Reaganites said.

[thecolorblue]

eh i'm still gonna disagree with you on this one. poor people spend most of their money (thereby stimulating the economy). if they have lower taxes, they'll have more money to spend, etc. rich people, on the other hand, tend to hold onto their money and pass it down from generation to generation and invest in static things like property or other rich people. there might be a little "trickle down" but not as much as "trickles up" from poor to the rich.

[easwaran]

Also, about Obama, he won't face the same kind of pressure Clinton did. For all but the first two years in office, I believe Clinton faced Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, while Obama will start with large majorities of Democrats (if we're lucky, maybe even filibuster-proof in the Senate!) and things are unlikely to reverse so dramatically in 2010.

[thecolorblue]

that's true, and i think obama is coming from a fundamentally different place than clinton (e.g not involved in the old boys' network). however, there's a lot of pressure on him to look more moderate (hence the Biden pick).

[radicalactivist]

The other thing to hate about Reagan is his policies or lack thereof for people suffering from HIV/AIDS.. or even responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis that was able to spread like wild fire and infect so many who died very rapidly. Without putting any money into research we were very behind and it took many years to find drugs to help those suffering and to develop public health policies to help prevent HIV infection. The man was plain evil.

Obama is certainly flawed. I'm a socialist so I won't even begin to get into how much I disagree with Obama. I'm not voting for him and because CA is not a swing state I have nothing to worry about. He will carry CA. Besides I believe in voting for the person I actually want to see in office-- which is Brian Moore of the Socialist Party USA. I'm working to get him write-in status. Anyway... I still want to see what an Obama presidency will look like and I do think he will "win." I've been predicting that since last year. We already know what a Mclame presidency would look like: scary.

--Tina

[thecolorblue]

right. the hiv/aids stuff is pretty disturbing too. i didn't feel like it necessarily fit in with the theme of this post, but yeah i totally agree with you.

i voted like you in 2000 -- for a third party candidate. i'm glad i did -- i wish more people had voted for nader so we could at least have three douchebags dolling out the punches during the debates. oh well.

[easwaran]

I really wanted to vote for a third-party candidate, but the choices that were on the ballot in California were completely uninspiring (except for Alan Keyes as a joke, I suppose). I suppose I don't know enough about Cynthia McKinney to say if she might have been a good person to vote for on the Green platform, but I don't recall her being especially green, and she seems to be famous more for her personality than her issues, though I can't be sure.

I didn't think about looking for active write-in campaigns.