nytimes.com — Americans, including the Joe Sixpacks, were repeatedly told that the benefits lavished on the rich would trickle down to them. Someday. The G.O.P. has done a great job masking the terrible consequences of much that it has stood for over the decades. Now the mask has slipped. Reaganomics has been proven wrong once and for all- trickle down is dead.
Oct 11, 2008 View in Crawl 4
voxlisa999Oct 11, 2008Submitter
Republicans: Find some new theories please and thanks for forcing lies on Americans even though you all knew Reaganomics was total BS:FTA:Remember voodoo economics? That was the derisive term George H.W. Bush used for Ronald Reagan’s fantasy that he could simultaneously increase defense spending, cut taxes and balance the budget. After Reagan became president (with Mr. Bush as his vice president) the budget deficit — surprise, surprise — soared.In a moment of unusual candor, Reagan’s own chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Martin Feldstein, gave three reasons for the growth of the deficit: the president’s tax cuts, the increased defense spending and the interest on the expanding national debt.The first is how wrong conservative Republicans have been on so many profoundly important matters for so many years. The second is how the G.O.P. has nevertheless been able to persuade so many voters of modest means that its wrongheaded, favor-the-rich, country-be-damned approach was not only good for working Americans, but was the patriotic way to go.
torgarmanOct 12, 2008
Ronald Reagan is given credit for bringing down the Soviet Union. Our arms race bankrupted the Soviets, and the US racked up huge debt in the process. Fast forward to 2001, the Bush Administration continued Reagan's economic policies and nearly doubled the federal debt.So, if Reagan brought down the Soviets through the arms race, he should also be credited for bringing down the US economy. Honorable mention goes to George W. Bush.
jchazOct 12, 2008
I thought you got it exactly spot on, Bob. Thank you for that elegant analysis and I will send it around. It have been perrenially flumoxed by my republican neighbors who are working folks and somehow want to believe the party of the very rich is for them. Maybe most of have by now had some object lessons and only the diehard non-readers will be voting for those tax breaks for the super rich and non regulation of industries vital to our well being. It is my fervent hope that this country takes the turns it almost took in the 40s to a more "social" philosophy interupted by the McCarthyites and quietly suffocated by Richard Nixon when he profitized insurance.