Former Reagan budget director: 'Steel industry are crybabies' & Trump is their 'biggest sucker yet'

[DonViejo]

Source: The Hill



BY JOE CONCHA - 03/08/18 04:29 PM EST

President Reagan's former budget director said Thursday that the "steel industry are the crybabies of the Beltway lobby farm" and that President Trump is their "biggest sucker yet."

David Stockman, who served under Reagan as his Director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1981-1985, made the comment during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN. The discussion focused on the president's decision to officially enact a 25 percent tariff on steel and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum.

"The steel industry are the crybabies of the beltway lobby farm," Stockman said. "They gang tackle every new president that comes in with their tale of woe. In this case, they’ve got the biggest sucker yet."

"And this whole thing is a giant mistake. I was involved way back in 1982 when I negotiated for the Reagan administration and an 18 percent quota on foreign steel, and they all pledged on their honor after five years they would be competitive, they wouldn’t need the protection anymore," he continued. "And here we are, 30 years later and they’ve had in protection in one decade after another, and it’s still the same old story."


Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/media/377484-former-reagan-budget-director-steel-industry-are-crybabies-and-trump-is-their

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[zipplewrath]

1. Mr. Golden Asterisk

The man that hid the huge deficits of the Reagan Tax cuts.

[calimary]

3. Yeah, his two friends: Rosey Scenario and the Magic Asterisk.

How to phony up your budget documents so everything fits and looks good and works out just like your wild 'n'crazy promises during the campaign - even though the reality is 180-degrees opposite.

Once again, we're being sold a "wish sandwich," and too many gullible voters will swallow it whole without even bothering to chew. And then they'll all wonder why their digestive tracts are all clogged up, to a near-lethal degree, with indigestibles, toxic sludge, and buckets of bullshit.

[mrmpa]

2. Screw him and the horse he rode in on..........

Last edited Thu Mar 8, 2018, 08:32 PM - Edit history (1)

It was Reaganomics who f'd with the steel industry. We don't have the steel mills we once had, because Reagan allowed the steel companies to invest in foreign steel. allowing them to make money no matter what happened. It was the steel companies in collusion with Reagan, that brought steel manufacturing to a almost a complete halt in the US.

I think the tariffs on steel and aluminum that trump wants, are insane. But to have a Reagan official bad mouth the steel industry after what that administration did is obscene.

Just the other day my boyfriend and I had a discussion about this matter. He is a retired steel worker. He lived through the closing of his US steel plant. He kicked around doing whatever he could to put on the table for his wife and daughters for about 6 years. He got an out of the blue call asking him if he wanted to work at a US steel plant that hadn't closed. He grabbed the offer and retired about 5 years ago.

[modrepub]

4. Lots of People Went Through This in the 90s

in my area. If you were working for Bethlehem you were considered lucky if you got a transfer to Sparrows Point to finish your career. Lots didn't. The steel industry is yet another industry where automation and cheaper techniques (switch from Blast Furnace to Electric Arc) did the most damage to the work force. Sat in a bar mill in Reading back in the day. The place bashed steel slabs into bars using a whole workforce of maybe 12 for the whole building (including janitors and all shifts).