http://notesfromoffcenter.disqus.com/Life from the view of a pragmatist Christian and educator.enMon, 05 May 2008 07:52:52 -0000http://notes-from-offcenter.com/2008/04/29/freaky-feed-and-stimulation-by-bush/#comment-1539955Thanks for the fact check!dtatuskoMon, 05 May 2008 07:52:52 -0000http://notes-from-offcenter.com/2008/04/29/freaky-feed-and-stimulation-by-bush/#comment-1539952Okay, I wasn't going to comment, but since I came back... you make the statement "Just like Reagan, Bush II has taken a balanced budget and screwed it up."<br><br>I suppose everyone is entitled to a little bit of re-writing history, but to argue that Reagan started with a government that had a balanced budget is, well, a fantastic stretch. <br><br>For the four years preceding Reagan (better known as the "Carter Years" there was a deficit run each and every year. (<a href="http://www.cbo.gov/budget/data/historical.shtml%29Reagan" rel="nofollow">http://www.cbo.gov/budget/data/historical.shtml...</a> did not inherit a Balanced budget. Not even close. I always thought it an interesting bit of history that prior to 1999, the last "balanced budget was in 1969, and that was only after "using" the Social Security surplus to balance the books.<br><br>Just thought you might want to know.<br><br>In addition, Reagan started with double digit inflation (12.5% for 1980, ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt), double digit interest rates (the federal reserve, or PRIME was at 13.35 in 1980, <a href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/data/Annual/H15_FF_O.txt" rel="nofollow">http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/data...</a>), and unemployment was at a more "reasonable" 7.1% level. (<a href="http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet" rel="nofollow">http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputSer...</a>)SteveSun, 04 May 2008 07:20:33 -0000http://notes-from-offcenter.com/2008/04/29/freaky-feed-and-stimulation-by-bush/#comment-1539954Aww shucks... It should be ok now. Mine updated automatically without any modifications to anything else.dtatuskoWed, 30 Apr 2008 18:06:38 -0000http://notes-from-offcenter.com/2008/04/29/freaky-feed-and-stimulation-by-bush/#comment-1539953Your feed still isn't working in my Bloglines. Maybe I should delete it and resubscribe. It's worth it to me to do an extra click and load your site, though. :)BeyondwordsWed, 30 Apr 2008 08:28:11 -0000