Early Post In Response to Others

I will be unable to post tomorrow, so I am posting my blog today instead!. Unfortunately that leaves Michelle free to run rampant tomorrow.

I must respond to Michelle's blog. President Reagan did NOT spend money we didn't have.Keynesian economics is the theory of deficit spending to revive the economy. However, this theory stopped with Reagan and supply-side economic theory. Reagan was a big proponent of balanced budgets and tax cuts, and Reaganomics got America out of the financial trouble of the 1980s, no matter what my history book says.

And I will gladly admit that the Bush administration was no where near as fiscally conservative as myself and many others would have liked. However, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq necessitated an increase in spending.

I saw an interesting graphic on the Glenn Beck show yesterday. It showed the amount of money in circulation from 1920 to today. The of amount of money in circulation had remained virtually stagnate until the 2000s when the amount skyrocketed.

So, it seems that a mentality has developed that we can just print off money like there's no tomorrow and that will fix everything. However, this theory is completely inaccurate. Even during the Great Depression and the depression of the 1980s, capital was not introduced into circulation.

And you know what, we got out of both of those just fine.

I watched a show on the History Channel last week comparing the financial crisis of today to that of 1929. The show said that the New Deal and all of its programs actually did very little to fix the Great Depression. It was World War II that saved America.

Obviously President Obama didn't watch this show, as he was quoted today as saying that the reason the New Deal didn't work was because it wasn't big enough! President Obama's stimulus package includes many initiatives that are similar to the New Deal: public works projects, infrastructure improvement, and others. Yes, these things need done and will improve America. However, history shows that this will not fix the economy.

What will fix the economy? I'm not sure. Decreased government spending wouldn't hurt. The original plan of buying up bad debt from banks should get back on track, as that would greatly increase confidence. And Jon Stewart, despite being a comedian, had a good plan: use the $819 billion and buy up the debt of individuals. If people have no debt what will they do...SPEND! It would work just as the bank bailout was planned to work: the government would buy loans and the taxpayers would repay the government just as if it was any other government spending.

If only President Obama and Congress read our little blog...

UPDATE: Here is the clip from Glenn Beck's program