Reagan Warned Us About Obama

[Jimmy_Jam]

As predicted at the time, Reagan's massive $749 billion supply-side tax cuts in 1981 quickly produced even more massive annual budget deficits. Combined with his rapid increase in defense spending, Reagan delivered not the balanced budgets he promised, but record-settings deficits. Ultimately, Reagan was forced to repeatedly raised taxes to avert financial catastrophe, including the last major bipartisan tax code overhaul in 1986. By the time he left office in 1989, Ronald Reagan nonetheless more than equaled the entire debt burden produced by the previous 200 years of American history.

During his presidency, Republicans in Congress voted seven times to raise the debt ceiling, the last to $11.3 trillion. By the time George W. Bush ambled out of the White House, he left his successor a $1.2 trillion budget deficit for 2009.

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I'm not going to argue that point. That Reagan ran up the deficit is easily verifiable. Reagan was not a perfect President. I simply admired his ability to lead, and his general outlook on freedom. I believe he was perfectly sincere in his speech, and right, but he did make some fiscal blunders that were not in line with his intentions. His significant increases in military spending are undeniable, but keep in mind that the Carter-era military was almost non-existent.

Many of the cut Carter made was due to the winding down of the Vietnam war. To be sure however his belief in Detante played a part. But history shows he had a change of heart before the USSR invaded Afghanistan. In 1979 he called for a significant increase in the military budget for fiscal 1979, a substantial strengthening of NATO forces, and the development and deployment of a new weapon, the neutron bomb. And then there was the RDF which some people don't think was such a good idea.

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Salient points.

I don't idolize Reagan, I just give credit where credit is due.

Another interesting point about the Carter administration. Much of the deregulatory reform that people associate with Reaganomics was already begun or underway under the Carter administration. The beginnings of deregulation of the airlines, trucking, telephones, railroads, natural gas, and some others, were already underway or beginning by 1979. Reagan may have upped the momentum, but he didn't exactly enact the deregulation. It was already beginning in response to a stagnating economy. Some may argue that the boom of the 80's would have happened anyway as part of the normal boom/recession cycle. How much Reagan affected the momentum of the 80's boom is an interesting conversation.