So it's your opinion that the Bush tax cuts are responsible for the mess we're in.

No. It's great when you can just make up an opponent's position, and you do it frequently. The tax cuts are responsible for about half the deficits we encountered, the rest being due to the wars Bush decided were good ideas and domestic spending that he signed into law. But the meltdown was the result of some really bad decisions made on a bipartisan basis to deregulate the financial sector, combined with lax enforcement of the remaining safeguards, and the usual untrammeled greed that is always waiting to take control when government is not doing its job.

I keep asking you guys what the Democratic Congress did in 2007 to make the economy go south immediately, and you never answer me. Specifics, please. It's simply impossible that the mere existence of a Democratic majority somehow caused a financial sector meltdown. What did they do?

The economic growth that followed the Reagan tax cuts was a classic Keynesian response. We both know that. The recent stimulus did in fact end the recession, so it was at least a partial success. That it hasn't worked as well or as quickly as earlier Keynesian programs is, I think, due to a number of factors: sky-high personal debt which is being paid down; loss of confidence in the entire financial sector; huge backlogs of underwater mortgages; outsourcing; the erosion of the US manufacturing sector; and others.

Fannie and Freddie were very badly managed and played a role in creating the mess we are in today, but they were not the prime actors. The big investment houses and banks deliberately foisted bad paper in the trillions of dollars on the market. Congresses and Presidents of both parties aided and abetted this. You keep saying that I blame it all on Bush, but that's just not true and you know it. He had no idea what was coming; only a few very savvy financial types did, and no one else wanted to believe it. Clinton was just as bad on this. And now Obama had to be pushed reluctantly into enacting financial reforms. It's pathetic how much in thrall US policymakers are to the myth of the magic market. Well, the wise guys got everything they wanted: low tax rates, special treatment for investment income, emasculated regulatory agencies, a bought and paid for Congress, repeal of Glass-Steagall, and more. Disaster ensued.

Now, please spell out what YOU think will reduce unemployment, reverse the increase in the numbers of Americans living in poverty, reverse the increases in home forclosures, and produce economic growth in the range that occurred after the recession in Reagan's first term. What tax rates do you favor? How will raising taxes as Obama proposes address any of the problems listed above?

First, the recession of 1981 (which was certainly not Reagan's fault--the major blame goes to Volcker's successful effort to wring inflation out of the US economy) was very deep. Unemployment was even higher than the depth of this last recession. The country got out of it by massive deficit spending, aided by a real estate bubble that crashed a few years later (remember the S&L crisis?). It's hardly a model to emulate in all particulars. Bradley and others had to clean up with tax reform in '86, and Bush I after that had to raise taxes, followed by Clinton, to get the economy on a sustainable path. Raising taxes doesn't increase employment unless those taxes are spent, but raising taxes does reduce the deficit, which is something that you say you're for. Eventually we'll have to start working on that, and raising taxes on the wealthy back to the levels of the very prosperous late 90's seems like the best way. I would also phase out the favorable treatment for capital gains, both to raise money and to reduce speculation. The unemployment rate is dropping; it will continue to do so. You can thank the stimulus for that. But pumping a trillion dollars of borrowed money into the economy year after year is obviously unsustainable. We are going to have to pay our own way some day; why are you against that?