I guess they'd have to prosecute John Kerry because he did the same damn thing when Reagan was president when he went down to Nicaragua to work a deal with Daniel Ortega.

The middle class has been disappearing since trickle down economics was instituted under reagan. Tax rates on rich was 70% and he lowered it to 35%. Note: my numbers are off, but the change was that drastic.

Support for newt's point... https://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/economy/news/2004/07/28/964/economic-prosperity-and-the-presidents/

He's one of my favorites. I'd put Louis C.K. very slightly above. Gaffigan and Reagan are pretty high up there. I'm sure there are others too that I can't think of right now.

What's the home town? I'm guessing somewhere in the NE?

In response to some of his questions at the end, I think a safe start would be to switch to alternative energy sources as a means to improve national security. That answers the question of why to do it. Lessening dependency on foreign oil would decrease being seen as meddlers in foreign lands or intentional meddling as I believe to be the case. In fact, I think we're already seeing this as the price of oil is decreasing. A side effect is that supply may simply shift to say China. If improvements in alternative energy accelerate the examples could be shared world wide. Sadly we'd be so much farther along had Jimmy Carters course not been reversed by reagan.

Note: All of this is speaking from the mindset of a U.S. citizen although I think it would also be true for many other nations.

reagan could never get nominated by the republicans today..they have all gome nutbag crazy..the proof is that they actually nominated sarah palin, case closed.

Ronald Reagan signed a sweeping immigration reform bill into law. Emperor Obama didn't.

On one hand the president was engaged with the house and senate and the other president just figuratively said fuck you to the house and senate.

Also, remember the Democrats had all 3 branches for the first 2 years and the Obama campaign was to make immigration reform as one of his key addenda items once elected.


Finally if an illegal alien is already here working ( paying taxes ect) by very definition they ARE taking an American job.

Something else you should remember is that the DOW is now at 16,512.89, much higher than it was at its peak in 2008.

The market largely recovered by 2011/2012. Granted, US govt debt has ballooned, but it's not like politicians have tried to fix that since Reagan.

This. Seriously, if a Republican was in office right now, they would be screaming the same thing everyone else was screaming, that's he a welfare rancher, refusing to pay his federally mandated dues that Regan made last forever now...

They are so obsessed with their Anti-Obama message they are missing their best chances to score with the American public at large. The individual mandate of Obamacare, is their idea, it is funded the same way they wanted to fund it. If they were smart, they should be shouting, "we could have had this back under Bush Sr, but the Democrats stopped it twice, and they stopped it again under Clinton. They couldn't pass their single payer or government option so t hey went with our plan. We told them so, and the American people had to wait all these years for them to come around to our plan." They then could explain why they oppose the changes from their versions like going from catastrophic only care to comprehensive care is bad, since apparently stopping people from getting sick is bad in their eyes... For this situation they should be noting how the Federal government got the land in 1848, before Nevada became a state in 1868 and before Bundy and his extended family was grazing cattle on the land in 1877... and ages before his family actually purchased the ranch in 1948... after the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 was passed... and even before the BLM was formed in 1946. Their hero, Reagan passed, as Stewart noted, the right to collect grazing fees forever. Bundy is just attempting to make a profit off the government's dime without compensating the government back. They should note how he threatened violence against federal officials... which if a Republican was in office now rather than a black man, they'd be screaming he's a domestic terrorist, and when he called in militia to support him, they'd be screaming how they were all terrorists against the government doing its rightful duty.

The right's hatred of Obama has blinded them to the very things they would normally be for and against, just because suddenly a man (who's probably closer to the Reagan era Republican than any of today's Tea Party members are) they oppose is in office rather than one of their Tea Party extremist...

Yes, of course, judge an entire generation by the babblings of a C-list reality star-tard. After all, the history books are littered with similar examples:

Pretty sure it was all those uneducated, worthless orphans and factory rats that caused World War 1

And don't forget how absynthe, ganja, and the Charleston caused the Great Depression.

Then there was that greatest generation of war-hungry, shell shocked GIs that could barely even put people on the moon.

Only to be followed by hippies and disco queens that gave us Reagan and Thatcher (think my faux-nalogy is falling apart here...)

I don't think they'll let the U.S. default now, nor do I think they will not raise the debt ceiling (But, again, who knows?). If they do, however, raise the ceiling, it will be another indication that there is no more capping the debt, it will grow and grow until the country has no choice but to default.

Interesting to remember, back at the beginning of the Reagan years, fiscal conservatives were "crying" about the debt being $1 trillion. That's nothing compared to what it is today. And it was Reagan (by way of his "Reaganomics") who decided that there was no problem with increasing the debt.
Writes Murray Rothbard (in 1981), in an article about how the U.S. should just default on the debt:

"Perhaps the most absurd argument of Reaganomists was that we should not worry about growing public debt because it is being matched on the federal balance sheet by an expansion of public 'assets'."

(I wonder what he would make of today's $16 trillion+ in U.S. debt?)

Predictably, as soon as Reagan went on a spending spree, fiscal "conservatives" stopped being so (not unlike the 'leftists' who stopped being anti-war as soon as Obama was elected).

It should also serve us to remember that it was the Democratic party that first considered itself the party of fiscal responsibility, at least with regards to Jefferson, Jackson, and Van Buren who all had a conscious plan to defund government but eventually failed for various historical reasons.

"It is for all these reasons that the Jeffersonians and Jacksonians (who, contrary to the myths of historians, were extraordinarily knowledgeable in economic and monetary theory) hated and reviled the public debt. Indeed, the national debt was paid off twice in American history, the first time by Thomas Jefferson and the second, and undoubtedly the last time, by Andrew Jackson."

What is helping with that though is that because the right keeps moving the goalposts, so many people who were once Republicans are now RINOs according to the extremists. Just like this video suggests, Will may be a fictional character, but he's describing exactly what a lot of moderate Republicans are going through right now. The right wing extremists have decided to pursue a personal vendetta against Obama and all the moderates in the party are going "wtf?"

Sorry, but that's the most basic sign of a downfall. when you keep purging your ranks for not having enough ideological purity, you're not exactly planning for long term success.

When all the big historical Republicans heroes like Lincoln, Nixon, and Reagan, and maybe even HW Bush couldn't win a Republican primary in today's climate, you know you're losing touch

I dunno though, speaking more generally however, there's got to be some way of inducing politicians to not play games like this. The whole 10% approval yet 90% incumbancy rate should hopefully shock people into doing something. We've got a bill that passed both houses of congress, signed into law by the president AND upheld by the SCOTUS, and yet a small faction is holding gov't hostage over this.

I don't see how it's even legal to defund something that is law. If it's law, how is it legal to interfere with it like that? If you don't like it, pass a new law repealing it....that should be the only way to stop an existing law (other than Supreme Court of course)

I've heard this numerous times before from conservatives that we need to enforce the laws already on the books....well...ok. Let's do that.

Reagan, Bush et al were certainly not nice guys, but try to keep a sense of perspective. They are not in anyway comparable to Hitler, Stalin or Genghis Khan.

If you're going to make statements like that, you need to back up your argument with some facts.

Reagan was just the first stooge hired by the remnants of the Nixon administration. (By Bush Snr {his head of the CIA}, Donald Rumsfeld {2nd in command of the CIA} & Dick Cheney {3rd in command of the CIA}).

Literally an actor. And a 3rd rate cowboy actor at that (only for domestic & retarded audiences).

BTW Dubya was next & a gift to these fellas, none of them dumb enough to be the man out front making excuses.

They decided that a few million dead kids was fine if it swelled the family pile by 20%. Vietnam, East Timor, Iran Chile etc etc etc etc
.....Does anyone really know how much bank Cheney made from the slaughter/'rebuilding' in Iraq? A billion? 10 billion? 100 Billion? Will any American ever ask? Guess not.

In the future analysis of this time, these men will be held up worse that than Hitler, Stalin & Genghis Khan for sure. Their crimes are comparable in every way (especially the massive piles of dead kids) but without the personal trauma to explain psychosis. The US government of the last 50 years consists of the richest, fattest, most privileged men ever to live in millions of years of humanity, and yet they've committed the worst crimes of all time. Millions dead, crippled, traumatized, orphaned.
Is it their fault or the fault of those around them who do nothing or worse; cheer?

nevermind the fact that Reagan could never run as a republican today. He'd be too moderate by today's standards.

You're exactly right, he's been deified. They know it can never happen so they keep attaching all these impossibly lofty ideals to him that no one could live up to.

Whenever I hear about conservatives talk about Reagan I get the eerie feeling that we're witnessing the birth of another religion.