For those who lie about the Reagan years

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GNPC96#0

And for those who don't understand what "Real GNP" is, it takes into account economic growth, compensated by inflation.  I understand that this concept will baffle many of you, but try to keep up.

Reagan's policies where wildly succesful, however Reagan was unsuccesful managing spending.  Most Libs will argue that this spending was on the military, however the great majority of spending increases were for social giveaways.  I would say, "Bet me", but Libs never pay their losing bets.

This chart proves that Reaganomics was wildly successul.  Who would like to see the "Real tax revenue" under Reagan?  Not those who claim that his tax cuts caused the deficity.

Stawmen are fun to knock down, aren't they?

Who ever said Reagan didnt create economic growth?   He most certainly did....and for the reasons you outlined.     He cut taxes and borrowed a shitload of money to spend in the economy.    Both stimulate the economy.  Boilerman has spent his posting tenure on this board denying the latter.   No Republican president in modern history including Reagan agrees with him.

Reagan successfully got us out of a nasty recession (along with Fed Chairman Volcker).    The ironic thing is he engaged in the biggest government spending endeavor since WW2  which was completely antithetical to his small government philosophy.    He tripled the national debt  and took the UNited States from being the biggest creditor nation to the biggest borrowing nation.     He increased military spending by more than 50%...largely to win the Cold War.

Despite his hypocrisy he proved to give our country the right medicine at the right time.    The big problem with Reagnomics is it set a pattern for every Republican that came after hime who sold the same hypocrisy about small government only to get into office an increase spending and cut taxes.    Three Republican presidents later we have the fiscal mess we have now. 

You can bitch about Democrats all you want.   They dont spend any more than Republicans do.   They just have the courage to tell the public it needs to be paid for.

Yeah that trickle-down really works.... Rolls eyes.

Reagan was a Conservative, and Libs tells us that Reagan types hate social giveaways.  Does PJ want to discuss what percentage of the increased spending that happened under Reagan was for free shit?  I'm shocked that you don't already know this.  Since it wasn't Reagan arguing for the massive increase in giveaways, then who could it have been?  BTW, Tip O'Neal and Reagan had a hand shake agreement on a spending increase limit in return for and agreed upon tax cut.  Tip didn't have the power to control the spending of the nutty other Liberals, and his promise was broken.  Never trust a Lyin' Lib............and I'm not talking about Tip.  He tried.

We can find the proof of the spending that I mention and where it went, although I've already posted this data many times on this site in the past.

OK, Boiler, Reagan was God. And he crusaded against Big Gummint and faced down them Rooskies. 

Of course, in the process, he crippled the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans, brought us to the brink of nuclear war numerous times, and financed his Happy Fun Sunshine Land With Lotsa Guns programs by borrowing borrowing borrowing borrowing borrowing--you know, "small government."

Reagan proved that it's easy to buy prosperity when your children are the ones who'll be paying for it--speaking of "free shit." The Democrats have been reluctant to follow voodoo economics--they believe that government programs should be paid for by taxes.

Not sure why he's talking about #40 when #45 left the country in shambles.

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/trumps-economic-legacy/story?id=74760051

tRump pledged to get rid of the debt and left us with 7 trillion more.

Never trust a lyin' repug.

Serious question: Other than Reagan, has any other president ever tripled that national debt?

Nice resource showing debt by year and short description of major influences

national debt by year.

To answer your question - yes, FDR....and thats dividing his term into 2 parts.

Interesting in his first 8 years with the New Deal and all those big-government programs conservatives still rail about today the debt only increased by 50%.    The second 8 years (cut short by his death) the debt quintuppled becasue of World War 2.   

ANything that isnt paid for is "free shit"...just like the multi-trillion dollar war in Iraq Boilerman supported and was not paid for.

Government spending money in the economy produces the same stimulus as the private sector doing the same.  And there is not an economics professor in the history of Perdue UNiversity that would disagree.   

And my IQ isnt low enough to listen to Boilerman lecture about Republicans and small government spending.   The data speaks for itself.    Republicans dont believe their own bullshit when it comes to spending....but they have Boilerman to make excuses for them as to why.  THats just special.

In any event you cant argue with data.   Every Democrat going back to Clinton left office with a smaller defict than the one they inherited.   You have to back to the Watergate guy to find an example of a Republican who did the same.

PJ answered your question very well, but I'd like to point out that government borrowing is a sound financial strategy if the cost of that borrowing is low--just as it is for businesses and individuals. What really matters is the COST of carrying that debt. In a situation where a) the federal government's credit rating is the best in the world; b) government debt instruments are carrying very low interest rates; and c) Inflation essentially reduces or even negates interest (because you're repaying with cheaper money), it makes no sense to NOT borrow. That's the case now.

I should also point out that we owe the majority of this debt to ourselves. 

That's why the infrastructure and climate change mitigation bills made so much sense. We can finance all the rebuilding we need to do at 3% APR. Why wouldn't we want to seize that opportunity?

Of course, conservitards have been reflexively bleating about this for some time now, but it's like having a leaky roof and being offered a home equity loan to fix it at 3%. It would be stupid to NOT take out the loan and instead say, well, maybe the leak won't get any worse (the RepubliQ approach to climate change).