Rabid anti-environmentalism. Isn't there a quote out there along the lines of ,"Conservation is conservative"?
Tax cuts + defense spending increases + protecting entitlements = fiscal disaster. Reagan, GWB, McCain, and Romney really want to "turn the US into Greece" with their reckless and unsustainable "borrow and spend policies"(if i may borrow a phrase from the GOP playbook). So much for fiscal conservativism.
The overwhelming majority of their social and foreign policies that restrict freedom contradicting their love of freedom.
Anti-intellectualism directly conflicts with 1.) the business community, who are mostly educated and owe their success to their education, and 2.) their messages of personal responsibility and self-improvement, as education helps people move up the economic ladder.
Putting the rights of businesses over the rights of workers and consumers
Besides the first and latter points, this explanation isn't really a dig at the inconsistencies of the Republican Party, but rather the current split that's going on between the more secular business wing, the religious conservative wing and the more libertarian Tea Party wing. The only one who was really hypocritical was Reagan, who blew up deficits while going on about a Balanced Budget Amendment. McCain and Romney were purely pandering and W Bush never gave a damn about the deficit. The GOP has always been based as the business friendly party.
Lets see....
Reagan added 2 trillions dollars to the deficit
Clinton added 1 trillion dollars to the deficit
Bush W. added 5 trillion dollars to the deficit
Obama has added 6 trillion dollars to the deficit
So it looks like Reagan wasn't as bad on the deficit as you make him out to be.
You really need to learn the difference between the deficit and the debt before you post anymore. Also, you need to understand this thing called "inflation" which impact those "nominal" numbers you posted.
Yes, Reagan was pretty bad in the long run.
Clarko is spot on with the difference between the deficit and debt. Note that during both Clinton and Obama's presidencies, the budget deficits took a downward trend, while with the Reagan and W Bush presidencies, the budget deficits had an upward trend. I will add that the deficit began to fall around 1986-1987, but it took
6 years to happen. I could get the data out if you would like.
I don't like quoting Ron Paul because I don't like him or what he stands for, but this quote rings very true when you talk about Reagan's hypocrisy.
