David Stockman, the former budget director in the Reagan White House, was charged Monday with overseeing a sweeping fraud at a troubled auto parts supplier that he led before the company sought bankruptcy protection.Anyone who was the Budget Director during the Reagan administration - An administration that oversaw eight consecutive record-shattering budget deficits and ran up almost $1.5 trillion in debt - should have been arrested for fraud a long time ago!
Stockman, 60, was one of four former top Collins & Aikman Corp. executives named in the federal indictment that was unsealed Monday. Four other former company employees, including a one-time treasurer, have already pleaded guilty in the case, prosecutors said.
When David Stockman was asked once about the Laffer Curve and the Reagan administration's policy of 'trickle down' economics he replied, “None of us really understand what's going on with all these numbers”. Not the words you want to hear from a 'budget director'.
And, of course, that line from Stockman would prove to be one of the biggest understatements in the history of U.S. fiscal policy.
David Stockman is also the man who suggested to Reagan that to save money he ought to classify ketchup as a vegetable for federally financed school lunch programs.
Nice guy.
