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I am not on top of this enough to deal with the various objections that have been raised, and I have not found enlightenment surfing, only counter- arguments that do not quite address one another.....As I understand it, the claim is not that there would have been no increase of debt, but that had budget discipline been maintained, the turn around into surplus would have come sooner. The compounding has to do with the indebtedness (and financing) that would have not occurred if spending had been lower. Some entitlements are "off- budget" because they are part of FICA. (I am still scratching my head over the claims made in one rebuttal, since the data used to establish the variation in spending came from the government, and I do not know where the counter- assertions came from). Another rebuttal makes light of the claim of persistent cuts,assuming that there would have been little more to cut after the first couple of years. Since I do not know the particulars, I have no idea how to respond. All I can say is that it is a mere assumption that Reagan would have run out of cost cutting proposals, and the reason that some items recurred is that they had not been cut in the first place. Anyway, I am less interested in nailing it down, since I cannot do so, as in showing that there are arguments cutting both ways out there..... |
