there, is rwanda. this huge population of the the huge explosion of the prison population in this country, to point where we are completely out of keeping with the rest of the world, except maybe rwanda, trying to keep up, that eventually made it clear that something had to change. that s in part because it became clear, for anybody who wanted to look at the facts, that our exploding prison population wasn t because of something that was happening organically in this country, it wasn t all about the crime rate, it was because of policy and politics. it was because of tough on crime conservative politics, fueled by media hysteria. that is how we built ourselves into this problem, where a full third of the entire budget for our whole justice department goes to paying to keep people in prison. interestingly, though, although it was conservative politics that drove us to where we are today, there is, today, a strand of conservative politics that wants to get us out of this problem. that
corn, it is a much deadlier political sin that he has caught rand paul committing. he s really gone and done it this time. david corn has found not one, not two, but six different instances on tape of rand paul taking the reagan s name in vain. criticizing ronald reagan, s saying that ronald reagan was not that great a president, saying that ronald reagan was a disappointment as a president, comparing ronald reagan unfavorably to jimmy carter. yeah, jimmy carter was better than reagan, said rand paul? yes, he said that and said it multiple times. the deficit went through the roof under reagan. everybody loves this budget. it was $100 million in debt. this was three times better than jimmy carter s best deficit. we wanted reagan to have balanced budgets and he didn t do it. it wasn t anything personal against him. i think his philosophy was good, i just don t think he had the energy or follow-through to get what we needed.
reagan. domestic spending went up under reagan more than it did under carter. we had one time when we had reagan, we were fiscal conservatives. well, unfortunately, even that wasn t true. jimmy carter s last budget was about 34, $36 billion in debt. well, turns out reagan s first budget turned out to be $110 billion in debt. during reagan s two terms, domestic spending went up faster than jimmy carter. domestic spending rose faster under reagan than it did under jimmy carter. we had a democratic congress, he didn t use the veto. neither did george w. bush do the veto. george w. bush presided overed a $5 trillion to $10 trillion deficit. we have to admit our failings, because we ve not going to get new people unless we become believable as a party again. rand paul is right on the facts as he is explaining them there. but that last point, about how we ve got to worry about our believability as a party, that ends up being a very key observation about this very big and ongoing problem fo
this charts the annual growth of the prison population from 1925 to 1986, the year that president reagan signed that landmark anti-drug bill. this is what happened to the prison population after 1986. in the last three decades, we ve increased the population of people we keep in prison by 500%. compared to the world in terms of the proportion of our citizens that we lock up, right now, we re number one, number two, you ll see, well behind us there, is rwanda. this huge population of the the huge explosion of the prison population in this country, to point where we are completely out of keeping with the rest of the world, except maybe rwanda, trying to keep up, that eventually made it clear that something had to change. that s in part because it became clear, for anybody who wanted to look at the facts, that our exploding prison population wasn t because of something that was happening organically in this country, it wasn t all about the crime rate, it was because of policy and politi
this time. david corn has found not one, not two, but six different instances on tape of rand paul taking the reagan s name in vain. criticizing ronald reagan, saying that ronald reagan was not that great a president, saying that ronald reagan was a disappointment as a president, comparing ronald reagan unfavorably to jimmy carter. yeah, jimmy carter was better than reagan, said rand paul? yes, he said that and said it multiple times. the deficit went through the roof under reagan. everybody loves this budget. it was $100 million in debt. this was three times better than jimmy carter s best deficit. we wanted reagan to have balanced budgets and he didn t do it. it wasn t anything personal against him. i think his philosophy was good, i just don t think he had the energy or follow-through to get what we needed. what he had to say most of the time was a great message. but the deficits exploded under reagan. domestic spending went up under reagan more than it did under