Claymore wrote:

"It took Reagan to get us out of that "malaise" (remember that?)."

Was that before or after he drove our national debt into the trillions? A debt that exceeded the TOTAL DEBT of ALL the presidents who had ever served prior to him!

Oh yes, I remember it well.

It has been said by political analysts that Reagan's first few years of economoic windfall were almost entirely dur to cost-caving measures implemented by Carter (many of them energy and utility related) that tok a bit of time to take effect. As for the obscene military build-up that put our debt into the trilions, wel that was all Ronnie's doing...mostly due to his "Star Wars" fantasy...

Clinton brought our federal deficit into the black again, and the economy positively boomed under him. Bush has driven it way, way into the red.

See a pattern here? I do.