Paging Will Bunch ... Will Bunch to the white courtesy phone ...
February 25, 2009 3:39 pm ET by Jamison Foser
During an online discussion today, Washington Post reporter Perry Bacon touted "the Reagan years" as an example of "low spending by the government":
Indianapolis, Ind.: Is the GOP message of no spending by the federal government, which to some extent rests on the idea that the last eight years didn't happen, working. It would seem to me to be a tough sell, no matter who was the Democratic president.
Perry Bacon Jr.: I think Republicans like that message, and Jindal and others want to make sure base Republicans are fired up. The last eight years weren't a great test of low spending by the government; Republicans would argue the Reagan years were a better example and more politically successful.
This is complete bunk. Federal government spending increased under Ronald Reagan. Increased significantly more than it did under, for example, Bill Clinton.
It's obvious why conservatives tell fairy tales in which the wise and noble Ronald Reagan kept government spending in check: they think it helps their political and ideological fortunes. It's less apparent why reporters like Perry Bacon repeat these myths.
If conservatives are wrong about Reagan, why do liberals hate him so much? I saw on another thread last week somebody posted that Reagan raised taxes a bunch of times during his two terms.
The 80's weren't so bad if you ask me.
Believe it or not Bruce, liberals don't like massive deficits. Especially when they bankroll a big expansion of the military-industrial complex or go to murderous third world thugs for proxy wars.
Reagan inherited a pretty bad economy just like Obama is, and Obama is going to be running up the deficit as well as a (hopefully) way to improve the situation.
I'm not hearing much complaining (from the left) about that.
Yep.....the economic myth of Reagan and his "tax cuts" and ERICFREE has it exactly right......Reagan cut taxes on the wealthy and raised them on the rest of us.
Also, next time you hear some bozo talk about the high marginal tax rate was 70 or 90 percent - those rates didn't apply to ones first and last dollar earned. And, due to deductions, very few people paid the top rate.
Reagan;s budget director , David Stockman admitted that the "supply side" tax cut stuff was a "trojan horse to justify tax cuts for the rich"
Here's Reagan tax increases
Reagan may have resisted calls for tax increases, but he ultimately supported them.
In 1982 alone, he signed into law not one but two major tax increases. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA) raised taxes by $37.5 billion per year and the Highway Revenue Act raised the gasoline tax by another $3.3 billion.
According to a recent Treasury Department study, TEFRA alone raised taxes by almost 1 percent of the gross domestic product, making it the largest peacetime tax increase in American history. An increase of similar magnitude today would raise more than $100 billion per year.
In 1983, Reagan signed legislation raising the Social Security tax rate.(doubled it actually)
This is a tax increase that lives with us still, since it initiated automatic increases in the taxable wage base. As a consequence, those with moderately high earnings see their payroll taxes rise every single year.
In 1984, Reagan signed another big tax increase in the Deficit Reduction Act.
This raised taxes by $18 billion per year or 0.4 percent of GDP. A similar-sized tax increase today would be about $44 billion.
The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 raised taxes yet again.
Even the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which was designed to be revenue-neutral, contained a net tax increase in its first 2 years.
And the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 raised taxes still more.
The year 1988 appears to be the only year of the Reagan presidency, other than the first, in which taxes were not raised legislatively. Of course, previous tax increases remained in effect. According to a table in the 1990 budget, the net effect of all these tax increases was to raise taxes by $164 billion in 1992, or 2.6 percent of GDP. This is equivalent to almost $300 billion in today's economy.
http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_bartlett/bartlett200310290853.asp
Yes, this is what I saw before.
Things were so bad under Reagan that he only won 49 states in his re-election bid.
He gets consistently good marks in national polls compared with other Presidents in the past 50 years.
That's enough reason to hate him for me. Plus, his movies sucked.
Actually, they improved between 1982 and 1984. If you're in a crater and start walking, it's not too tough to go up. (Unless the crater is really huge. Then you have to walk for a long time to find the wall.)
If you know of any Reagan-loving book or website, find a graph of his economy in it. It'll start in 1983 or 1984, not at the beginning of his presidency. Why is that?
Here is the response I asked Perry Bacon this morning. Of course he didn't answer.
Reagan era:
Forgive me if I am misremembering, but didn't Reagan run up such huge deficits via his spending that he ended up raising taxes multiple times? Why would Republicans point to that as their golden age of governance?