Good or bad, Reaganomics legacy endures in America

[CShine]

President Reagan inherited a bad economy in the 1980s and made it better. That legacy endeared him to many Americans, but what he did and how he did it remain highly controversial two decades later. In slashing tax rates, building up the Pentagon budget and pushing deregulation, Reagan put his country and his party on a new economic path. And now, in a new century, the same battles over his economic philosophy are being fought again.

The Republican Party has embraced the Reagan tax-cutting message as party dogma, emphasizing a lighter tax burden over higher deficits. President Bush's economic plan is cut from the Reagan pattern -- tax reduction with large deficits.

Like Reagan, Bush has projected that economic growth sparked by lower tax rates will narrow deficits over the next decade. But Democratic critics say that in emulating Reagan by running up a big deficit, Bush has put the nation's economy in a perilous position.

Reagan introduced the country to "supply-side economics," the theory that lower tax rates would power the economy, produce more revenue and more than pay for themselves without creating higher deficits. Today, this theory is still fiercely debated. A majority of economists say the theory has some marginal validity, but they generally add that cutting taxes contributes to more red ink.


http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2612026

[readmylips]

1. Red Ink Reagan....

another one of those Reagan positive names....Red Ink Reagan.

[joefree1]

2. Trickle down theory?

Sounds like we're getting pissed on.

[jdj]

3. "supply-side economics"

Good strategy, name it something vague that common people can't quite figure out.

It's rich vs. poor, pure and simple.

The rich get richer and the poor get screwed. Investment class vs. working class, with a bunch of people wedged in between for the parties to fight over during elections. The wedge class is getting poorer and poorer now though.

[modrepub]

4. This just goes to prove

You can buy popularity, just make sure the bill comes due after you die.

[FreakinDJ]

5. "I Think We've Hit the Jackpot"

"I Think We've Hit the Jackpot"

In 1982, Ronald Reagan offered this heartening bit of wisdom upon signing the Garn-St.Germain Act, which essentially rewrote the book on S&L (savings and loans) regulations across the land. Reagan called Garn-St.Germain "the most important legislation for financial institutions in 50 years." What he failed to explain to American voters was what this legislation would do to them. Years later, we would find out. Few beyond financial page reporters picked up on this gargantuan scandal and its startling implications – the S&L crisis cost US taxpayers over $1.4 trillion dollars. We're still paying for it today.

http://www.chicagomediawatch.org/02_1_enron.shtml

To bad he didn't out live the debt he created

[modrepub]

6. You are right

Though how many people out there can correctly place the blame for this fiasco. Besides a lot of people made $ on this. I remember infomercials showing how you could buy "boxes" of loans from failed S&Ls and turn a great profit.

[CheshireCat]

7. "Beginning of the end" of the US democracy

To me, that is the the Reagan legacy.

"Trickle down" economics is just Robin Hood in reverse. During the 50's, 60's, and 70's, seeing families living on the streets was a rarity. Reagan's economic policies made it mainstream.

I remember discussing the forming of and underclass in America in my graduate classes after Reagan was elected. During my graduate years, we watched the underclass form and grow.

He is also responsible for ending fairness in the media. Reagan ended the "Fairness Doctrine". His administrated helped CBS, ABC, and NBC move their news divisions to the entertainment divisions. Before, the news divisions were not required to make mucho$$$ and have sky-high ratings.

Believe it or not, the concept that the big Networks and Communications companies owed the people of America fair, unbiased, and principled new coverage in exchange for using the airwaves (which belong to the people) went unquestioned until Reagan and his cronies convinced the masses that free trade = democracy.

I watched Reagan and his people change the path of America from moving into a progressive period where equal rights and economic equity ruled. Instead, he tried to unravel civil rights gains for women , minorities, and others, while starting a class war at the same time.

[DebJ]

8. I lived through Reaganomics...or barely survived those years

What I recall most vividly is 'downsizing'.

Yeah, stuff runs down hill, but NOT money....just s#$t.

[DebJ]

9. Another memory: he cut 80% of federal college financial aid

[DBoon]

11. And changed tax rules

So that single working people really got screwed. Tax cuts my ass!

I am speaking from personal experience here.

[shanti]

14. tell me about it

i was attending college in the mid-late 80's :grr:

[DBoon]

10. It took over 10 years before the economy really improved

The "boom of the late '80s was confined to speculative investment and the defense industry (and I was not fortunate to have worked in either at the time).

It wasn't until after the 1990 recession that life really began to improve.

Oddly, the president at that time was a Democrat.

[FreakinDJ]

12. Reagen had NOTHING to do with the success of the 90s

He couldn't much less use a computer as ponder the inter workings of free enterprise and the Internet

the free passage of information and corporate advantages of closed loop inventories across a nation wide network of stores was not accomplish with Trickle Down (pissed on) economics

The information super highway created the boom of the 90s

[DBoon]

13. Exactly!

Except in as far as the boom looked so much better compared to his economic depression. I give Clinton full credit for the boom.

On edit: Typo in original post, I meant to refer to the boom of the late '80s, not the '90s. I had in mind the "Gordon Gecko prosperity" of the Reagan years, not the high-tech boom of the '90s. My bad.

[w4rma]

15. It really ticks me off how these supposedly objective "journalists" try to

convince folks that Reagan is responsible for an economic boom. This article writes this as if it were fact ("President Reagan inherited a bad economy in the 1980s and made it better."). It's not a fact. In fact it's an outright lie from what I can tell.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

16. The booming Steel Industry

is one result of reaganomics.

I fail to understand how people who gave the better part of their lives to that business can still vote republican after the way they were screwed by Ronnie.

[dArKeR]

17. Reaganomics left mixed legacy of deficit, growth

REUTERS , WASHINGTON
Monday, Jun 07, 2004,Page 12

Few leaders have whole movements named for them, especially one as emotionally laden as "Reaganomics" -- the late US president Ronald Reagan's blend of tax cuts and massive military spending that got the economy moving but tripled the US' debt.

It was a policy former president Bill Clinton dubbed "reckless" as he pressed to use budget surpluses to pay down debt instead of cutting taxes. Reagan's prescription, coupled with a business-backed drive to deregulate, was denounced as "trickle-down economics" by those who said tax cuts for the wealthy meant crumbs for the poor. But Reagonomics fans counter that it helped snap the US economy out of a lethargy that had reigned for much of the 1970s.

The US economy expanded steadily from late 1982 to July 1990, creating nearly 20 million jobs and triggering a boom in stock markets that carried on until 2000.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worldbiz/archives/2004/06/07/2003174148

[Moderator]

18. Unfortunately, this is an opinion piece

Even the opening sentence betrays it as such.

Thus, it will move to the Editorial pages.