Supply-Side Economics
Here's an interesting, informative piece spelling out the intellectual bankruptcy of supply-side economics:
Modern conservatism is built around the promise of supply-side economics — an economic philosophy that claimed to allow Republicans to cut taxes, maintain popular social programs, robustly fund defense and balance the budget. The problem: Supply-side economics hasn’t actually worked as promised, but the GOP refuses to abandon it. And that, more than hypocrisy, is the real problem facing Republicans — they have principles; those principles just don’t work. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ed-principles/ |
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The article conveniently forgets that the primary reason the deficit "exploded" was spending. As your favorite paper was at least capable of noticing at the time: For each of the past several years, President Reagan has sent a new budget to Capitol Hill, and Congress has promptly pronounced it DOA -- dead on arrival. This year, with the drama over the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings balanced-budget act beginning, the early reaction is different: Most Republicans as well as Democrats have declared the administration's budget DBA -- dead before arrival. As the article goes on to detail, year after year CONGRESS refused to give up their favorite pet spending programs, even after being elected to Congress with promises to reduce spending. Yet, revenues dramatically increased each year: FY 1989 - $991 billion FY 1988 - $909 billion FY 1987 - $854 billion FY 1986 - $769 billion FY 1985 - $734 billion FY 1984 - $666 billion FY 1983 - $601 billion FY 1982 - $618 billion FY 1981 - $599 billion FY 1980 - $517 billion https://www.thebalance.com/current-u...evenue-3305762 |
Republicans' sacred love of military spending has always undermined whatever program/policy they undertook.
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As president, he signed it into law with the 1981 Economic Recovery Tax Act, which pushed through a 25 percent reduction in the marginal tax rate for individuals over three years. At the same time, Reagan spearheaded a massive military buildup that skyrocketed defense spending... President George W. Bush showed that his father’s breed of Republicanism was out: Aided by a Republican Congress, he undid this balanced budget, passing two huge tax cuts despite starting two expensive wars. On top of it all, he also added a costly new prescription drug benefit to Medicare. He did so with fairly little conservative opposition: With a Republican back in the White House, deficits took a back seat to tax cutting and defense spending. |
Careful bandying all those facts about. You’ll confuse old Whell. ;)
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Today's budget calls for the same. Tax cuts done deal. Raise military spending for a war that will never be fought. And of course, cuts to safety nets. History shall repeat itself. Go for broke, cry poverty and then cut spending for the poor and the elderly.
Simply cannot understand why people vote Republican on the promise of small government (not), balanced budget (never). Never ever happens. |
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1) When it suits you, you like to forget that a budget is balanced when revenue and income are (since we're talking government here, we'll just use the term) roughly equal. What that means is that spending, the increase or reduction of which, can be just as much a variable as revenue. Revenue was rising during Reagan's tenure, so you can't suggest that a tax cut produced a revenue reduction in the face of spending growth. In fact, while the Budgets submitted by the White House at that time DID call for increased spending in some areas but also called for reductions in others. Its the latter part that typically failed to materialize, as pointed out above, but as you likely failed to understand. 2) Bush started two wars? LOL This rather conveniently omits the fact that the United States was attacked on 9/11/2001. In also omits the fact that there was a significant reduction in military spending that started at the end of Bush 1 and continued by Clinton. So, yeah, there was a need to jump military spending. That same 9/11 attack also set off a number of unforseen events that softened the US economy that was still reeling a bit from the burst of the "dot.com bubble" at the end of 2000. There was also bi-partisan support for the Bush tax cuts, from EGTRA to the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 which Nancy Pelosi authored and Bush 2 signed. |
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Now, in actuality, what you have is Trump trying to do what Reagan couldn't.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/...rograms-403636 The budget again reflects Trump’s businessman-like commitment to shrinking the federal bureaucracy, for the first time making public the White House’s plans for trimming staff and operations across the federal government. Those “workforce reduction” plans — which rely on hiring freezes, buyouts and stripping protections that make it easier to fire workers — are the result of nearly a year of back-and-forth between OMB and agencies. Some departments, like Education, have already starting giving workers incentives to leave, while the Agriculture Department has made clear it will only be reorganizing, not cutting employees. Also this: To help pay for it, Trump’s budget office has requested scraping more from other social programs, like food stamps, and proposing changes to Medicare. The federal health program is one of the fastest-growing drivers of the national debt. To help stem that rise, Trump’s budget proposes a slew of vague reforms including improvements to “drug pricing and payment policies” and “government-imposed provider burdens.” Last year, Medicare was mentioned just 10 times in Trump’s budget. This year, the program is mentioned more than 100 times. I think this is the right approach. Entitlement programs - along with most every other area of the gov't budget - grows every year. Does it make sense to think that we'll still need the same level of fund for these programs in the face of low unemployment and rising wages? I think not. Of course, even suggesting this will make the left scream like stuck pigs. |
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