Ronald Reagan's 1961 Speech

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

Like I have said before I just see the Good and the bad with the guy that's all. Now Teddy Roosevelt that was a real leader (Now all I have to do is sit back and wait for someone to rip him apart and point out his flaws)

 

TR was great on defense and international policy, but his economic ideas were nothing short of catastrophic.

[YellowLinesandArmadillos]

Interesting debate. First off I agree Reagan was partially to blame. The Executive Branch has the ability to control how the purse strings are and are not spent to an extent. But Rostenkowski who was the Ways and Means Committee Chair that was quoted was just as much to blame and Tip O'Neil, Speaker of the House, Cut a lot of deals too. I forget who the Republican Leader in the Senate was, but they all had their hands in the till.

 

Reagan played a great role in ending the cold war, but he increased a lot of spending and did little to control deficits. It was a cluster all the way around. Clinton and House Dems and later Republicans competed to curb deficit spending in the 90s by different but ultimately successful means. Clinton held up spending (delayed it for a year often) and let go of a lot of Bureaucrats. There were a lot of parochial fights over him doing it, but he got away with it. Also, for a time the line item veto was his biggest too. I wish there was a way to make it Constitutional.

 

Bush and pent up demand from House Republicans blew the roof of spending on projects. Now Pelosi is doing the same thing and the usual offenders on both sides are up to their same old tricks. Obama needs to take a stronger stand on line item spending, though he has very little teeth unless he starts delaying projects. Though he has already caught crap for not getting stimulus money out there fast enough.... you can't have it both ways and Obama trying to walk a middle line on this deal is what Whip Tom Delay (R-TX) aptly put resulting in the creation of my Avatar.

 

Until the Dem Leadership in the Senate and he take a stronger stand against Pelosi, this is going to keep being a fiscal and political problem for the Dems.

 

On the healthcare debate, nice rhetoric, but back then there were a lot of insurance choices and since the government never enforces anti-trust laws, at least having another option might be good. P.S. Didn't Reagan create HMOs, part of the reason for this whole cluster in the first place?

[Adam]

Reagan was a good president in that his terms were relatively uneventful. I don't know if we have had a truly great president since Abraham Lincoln. Jimmy Carter and George W Bush were truly awful

[/dev/null]

Clinton also in 1992 enacted the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992

 

Bush I was President in 1992...

[GG]

Reagan was a good president in that his terms were relatively uneventful.

 

There is not a single US President for whom you can make that statement.

 

 

 

 

(ok, maybe WH Harrison)

[IDBillzFan]

There is not a single US President for whom you can make that statement.

 

 

 

 

(ok, maybe WH Harrison)

And maybe Chester A. Arthur, who I really knew very little about until Simon Gruber put a fake bomb in the school that carried his name.

[/dev/null]

And maybe Chester A. Arthur, who I really knew very little about until Simon Gruber put a fake bomb in the school that carried his name.

 

I caught that recently on some channels weekend afternoon movie. They edited out Bruce Willis/John McClain's signature line to

 

Yippie Kay Yay My Friend

[IDBillzFan]

I caught that recently on some channels weekend afternoon movie. They edited out Bruce Willis/John McClain's signature line to

 

Yippie Kay Yay My Friend

If it was on TNT, they probably ran a commercial between each word.

[bills_fan]

I listened to this speech. If the Republicans really wanted to put a the final nail in Obamacare, they would just replay this speech (and say when Reagan gave it) as their response to Obama's speech on healthcare. If they play it on national TV, the debate is over and Obama loses. How appropriate and relevant it seems today, 47 years after it was given.

[billsfan89]

I listened to this speech. If the Republicans really wanted to put a the final nail in Obamacare, they would just replay this speech (and say when Reagan gave it) as their response to Obama's speech on healthcare. If they play it on national TV, the debate is over and Obama loses. How appropriate and relevant it seems today, 47 years after it was given.

 

Not that the speech was hyperbolic but trying to correlate this speech to todays health care issues is hyperbolic. What Reagan is talking about is how little by little the more you add people to government insurance programs than that leads to socialized medicine now in 1961 (Where you didn't know how government coverage of health care would work or lead to) the speech was appropriate. The idea that Obama is trying to move to a single payer system bit by bit is jumping to conclusions.

 

I think the public option was just an attempt to give private insurance companies competition to lower cost on more bare bones policies. To me the public option wasn't a bad idea however there were a lot of legitimate issues and concerns with it (Cost control in accordance with the deficit and could it run at a profit).

 

To me Obama should just focus on getting a bill out there that people will know without a doubt what is and more importantly isn't in it. The right has fed off the uncertainty of the Bill (Obama is going to kill your grandmother and make so that we adopt the Canadian health care system) the left hasn't done enough to dispel these rumors and tell the public what the Bill is actually about.

 

I hope Obama just learns from his initial mistake and gets a Bill out there that reforms insurance and keeps costs down for the working class. I also hope the right gets their act together and works with Obama on the Bill so that Obama creates a Bill that works for everyone.

[bills_fan]

Not that the speech was hyperbolic but trying to correlate this speech to todays health care issues is hyperbolic. What Reagan is talking about is how little by little the more you add people to government insurance programs than that leads to socialized medicine now in 1961 (Where you didn't know how government coverage of health care would work or lead to) the speech was appropriate. The idea that Obama is trying to move to a single payer system bit by bit is jumping to conclusions.

 

Perhaps, but I'm willing to make that leap. Teddy Kennedy understood incremental change and I think Obama is figuring it out as well.

 

I think the public option was just an attempt to give private insurance companies competition to lower cost on more bare bones policies. To me the public option wasn't a bad idea however there were a lot of legitimate issues and concerns with it (Cost control in accordance with the deficit and could it run at a profit).

 

Want to create competition that will lower the cost for Americans with a stroke of a pen...easy, permit insurance companies to operate across state lines. Let every health insurance company operate in all 50 states.

 

To me Obama should just focus on getting a bill out there that people will know without a doubt what is and more importantly isn't in it. The right has fed off the uncertainty of the Bill (Obama is going to kill your grandmother and make so that we adopt the Canadian health care system) the left hasn't done enough to dispel these rumors and tell the public what the Bill is actually about.

 

I hope Obama just learns from his initial mistake and gets a Bill out there that reforms insurance and keeps costs down for the working class. I also hope the right gets their act together and works with Obama on the Bill so that Obama creates a Bill that works for everyone.

 

I can't take seriously any bill that does not cap medical malpractice awards in a worker's compensation style forum. Without that limitation, the bill is just pandering.

[IDBillzFan]

The idea that Obama is trying to move to a single payer system bit by bit is jumping to conclusions.

Wrong. Obama wants a single payer system, and and he's not afraid to tell everyone how to get it.

 

“I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”

 

People aren't nearly as stupid as the left hoped they'd be.

[/dev/null]

 

Have you heard he started his own line of hot dogs? Barney Franks

 

He also has his own line of collectables, availble at the Barney Franklin Mint

 

*from FM99 morning show in Norfolk

[murra]

Not that the speech was hyperbolic but trying to correlate this speech to todays health care issues is hyperbolic. What Reagan is talking about is how little by little the more you add people to government insurance programs than that leads to socialized medicine now in 1961 (Where you didn't know how government coverage of health care would work or lead to) the speech was appropriate. The idea that Obama is trying to move to a single payer system bit by bit is jumping to conclusions.

 

I think the public option was just an attempt to give private insurance companies competition to lower cost on more bare bones policies. To me the public option wasn't a bad idea however there were a lot of legitimate issues and concerns with it (Cost control in accordance with the deficit and could it run at a profit).

 

To me Obama should just focus on getting a bill out there that people will know without a doubt what is and more importantly isn't in it. The right has fed off the uncertainty of the Bill (Obama is going to kill your grandmother and make so that we adopt the Canadian health care system) the left hasn't done enough to dispel these rumors and tell the public what the Bill is actually about.

 

I hope Obama just learns from his initial mistake and gets a Bill out there that reforms insurance and keeps costs down for the working class. I also hope the right gets their act together and works with Obama on the Bill so that Obama creates a Bill that works for everyone.

 

...I can't believe what I've just read. i planned on italicizing the parts that were either wrong or made up, but I couldn't get past the the first paragraph without italicizing the entire thing.

 

I did bold the part that actually made me fall out of my chair though.

[Adam]

There is not a single US President for whom you can make that statement.

 

 

 

 

(ok, maybe WH Harrison)

RELATIVELY uneventful. While he wasn't perfect, everything evened out at the very least.

[billsfan89]

...I can't believe what I've just read. i planned on italicizing the parts that were either wrong or made up, but I couldn't get past the the first paragraph without italicizing the entire thing.

 

I did bold the part that actually made me fall out of my chair though.

 

Yeah screw me for thinking that a speech made in 1961 isn't completely relevant to a debate held in 2009 or is the Gipper timeless in 20 years is Reagan still going to be able to solve issues with speeches from 60 years ago. I don't get what was so funny about the part you put in bold the right has said that things like communal standards and death panels are in the Bill but they are not. There are multiple proposed Bills out there and each one of them contains different things. The public has no clue whats in the Bill and that's the lefts fault.

 

I think that Obama and the left have let this issue get completely out of hand and have let the right take over the debate. If Obama wants any hope of salvaging this bill he has to let it be known what's in or not in it to get rid of the element of uncertainty which breeds fear. I mean a provision that had optional consoultations for making a living will (Which could state hey if I am ever in a coma or old you need to resuscitate and keep me alive at all costs) got twisted to mean OBAMA IS GOING TO KILL YOUR GRANDMOTHER.

 

You are telling me that implying that a lack of communitation by the administration to the public isn't going on or that that interpritaion is so faulty and groundless?