don't think of it as re-distribution -- this is talk radio polemics, and it doesn't give you a good angle on your problem.
the U.S. has the largest consumption economy in history. to be healthy, your economy requires a certain level of middle class consumption. but your economic system -- free market neoliberalism -- is no friend of the middle class. don't kid yourself, the market HATES when a pampered labor market springs up along one of it's supply chains. Capital LOVES third world labor markets. middle class entitlements are way too expensive. . .
but I digress. reagan asked you good folks to discontinue everything being done to create a solvent middle class. [remember: in the 50s & 60s, you folks were buying TVs, cars, blenders, sofas, aluminum siding, lawn ornaments, and refrigerators in record numbers. You had the money because your government made sure that your immense manufacturing profits found their way down to the workers, who were supported handsomely with every manner of benefit, from high wages, cheap housing, education, medical and retirement... not to mention a thriving public sector of museums, parks, highways, public transportation, and public works. The old America invested heavily in the middle class, which lead to immense consumption and economic activity. [the economy does well when the middle class has money to buy things. Trickle up wealth! it dies when only the wealthy have money and the working classes are kept alive on subsistence wages and credit]
But, so . . . Ronnie told you nice folk that government no longer needed to worry about investment in the middle class. in fact, you were told that government involvement in the economy stagnated growth, i.e., no bureaucrat will ever possess enough information to regulate supply and demand effectively. only capitalism, driven by human nature itself, can calibrate incentives, investments, and resources effectively. Sadly: the big government which won WWII, put a man on the moon, and saved the gipper's father was now, conveniently, the problem. Ronnie's goals were transparent: to give tax breaks and deregulation to all the new wealth created by the glorious postwar years. he said that removing middle class investment and giving the money back to the wealthy would translate into re-investment, innovation, and jobs -- indeed, the resulting economic activity of his historic tax cuts and omnivorous deregulation would lift all boats higher than any crippling welfare state. he was right to an extent: 40 years of liberalism punctuated by LBJs excessive Great Society had left you chaps with a bloated, inefficient mess.
but everybody knew ronnie and margaret were preaching voodoo, because at precisely the time they were promising more jobs, they quietly laid the foundation for a hyper-globalization, i.e., they were shipping jobs to cheaper labor markets. good bye middle class.
Tragically, "Morning in America" was created by deficit spending. It was an illusion born of credit cards and artificially cheap energy. (Please study the Reagan deficits. He was the first modern president to completely abandon pay-as-you-go. He set you folks on a voyage from which you would never return). When the money stopped tricking down, and the wealthy transferred their newfound wealth to decadent lifestyles and dynastic inheritances, the middle class was kept alive with creative debt instruments.
(and now you are lying in that bed)
regardless, you had a good run. but I fear in another 20 years your teeth will look like ours.
carter told you to worry about petroleum. he explained where an over dependence on the middle east would lead. ronnie said carter was just another "sky is falling" lefty trying to control the economy. what was reagan's first act as president? he tore down the solar panels on the white house roof. yes, he was heavily funded by big oil and big finance, but nobody is perfect. he opted to increase oil dependency at precisely the time he should have put on the breaks. in order to pull it off, he invested money you didn't have in a MASSIVE military system, i.e., big guns were needed NOT ONLY to stabilize the middle east, but to ensure the flow of capital and goods across an unstable globe. and he didn't price the pentagon into the pump, i.e., he muted what would have been strong price signals, i.e., don't kid yourself, once you include the cost of military extraction, the real cost of oil is unaffordable. too late now.
but yes, policing the globe ain't cheap, and washington has done well to hide the cost by blaming all your problems on social spending. Let's face it: you are borrowing yourself into oblivion to keep the empire going, and you have finally bumped into your borrowed against future. it gets worse: the cheap energy is gone, i.e., the very basis for your postwar suburban expansion was a bad bet. your entire infrastructure is now twisting in the wind, and it will slowly unravel. you spent the last 40 years not doing what carter begged you to do: create a plan B, or at least decrease your daily consumption of oil (slowly, over time) so you wouldn't be so exposed to rising costs. now you're stuck inside "the greatest misallocation resources in history", created by an over investment in a diminishing resource. you chose wrongly in 1980.
