[ExI] libertarianism

William Flynn Wallace foozler83 at gmail.com
Sun Oct 21 15:10:14 UTC 2018


The only recent president you cite is Clinton.  And I think your sample
size is too small, and outdated, to make any judgment about current
affairs.  Why restrict the cuts to defense?  Some Libertarians think the
entire dept. of Education should be closed, among others.  And do we really
a Dept. of Agriculture, where there are more people working than there are
farmers?  And who let farmers use so much fertilizer that there are square
miles of the Gulf where there is no life?

We need not only international treaties governing nuclear weapons - we need
treaties that restrict a countries' total defense spending.  Massive cuts,
you say?  When we are spending more than the rest of the world combined on
defense, massive cuts can be made if we can get China and Russia to do the
same.

The world is getting so interdependent that wars between the big countries
is becoming something that would not solve anything, and disrupt the
economies.  Fight wars with tariffs - maybe that's a good answer.

bill w

On Sun, Oct 21, 2018 at 9:31 AM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 19, 2018 at 3:47 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I think it will take another crash on Wall Street or maybe even worse
>> to get us off the free money train we are riding.
>>
>
> I think the dangers of deficit spending have been dramatically overstated,
> the USA has spent more money than it had in nearly every year since it
> started in 1776 and yet that doesn't seem to have harmed it, the country is
> still here and is the most powerful in the world. I'm not saying deficit
> spending couldn't theoretically get out of hand but I am saying it is not
> necessary or even desirable for a government to have a precisely balanced
> budget each and every year.
>
> But if you think it's important, only 7 presidents have  left office with
> the government owing less money as a percentage of GDP than when they
> entered the office. The are listed below, the first two made by far the
> largest reductions:
>
>  1) Harry Truman, a Democrat
>  2) Bill Clinton, a Democrat
>  3) Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican
>  4) Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat
>  5) Richard Nixon, a Republican
>  6) John Kennedy, a Democrat
>  7) Jimmy Carter, a Democrat
>
> It's interesting that the conventional wisdom that the Democrats are the
> spendthrift party and the Republicans are the conservative fiscally prudent
> party is inconsistent with the facts.
>
> > We have to raise taxes and lower spending without harming the
>> vulnerable - and yes, I do think that's possible
>
>
> To do that you would need a MASSIVE reduction in military spending, and
> even then I doubt it would be enough.
>
> John K Clark
>
>
>
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