Re: Is Anyone In This Group Enthusiastic About Any Candidate?

John Galt wrote:
"Rumpelstiltskin" <PleaseDoNotReplyByEmail@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:ounio3d3ka0ufksseg2it59avk16kv5gdi@xxxxxxxxxx
---[snip]---

Carter only ran up a fraction of the deficits that Reagan and the
Bushes ran up for the same period of time. Yeah, I guess I would
have bitched about the Carter deficits if I'd been paying attention
at that time, but there's no comparison with what came later.

No, but at the time, the deficit was one of the issues that propelled Reagan into office. It was, at the time, considered "runaway", and in the context of the overall economy (not gross dollars) it wasn't much different than it was today.


I recall that period very well since I was in the DC area at the time. It was not the size of the deficit that was the issue at the time, but the out-of-control interest rates that everyone including the federal government was paying. There was a great deal of concern over the amount of credit that was being bought up by foreigners and speculation about how that might influence US foreign policy. The deficit was low during the Carter years, but the interest was killing us.

While Carter gets most of the blame for the high inflation rate of the period, the blame really goes back to Fed Chairman Arthur Burns who increased the money supply in an effort to get Nixon reelected in '72. Carter's deficit spending (as a percentage of the GDP), despite the higher interest rates, was less than the Nixon/Ford administration which preceded it and the Reagan deficit spending was nearly twice that of the Carter administration. If it had not been for Paul Volcker (appointed by Carter) who deserves the real credit for ending the runaway inflation, Reagan would have been in very serious financial difficulty.
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