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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ecommerceman who wrote (127134)	2/15/2001 12:08:23 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

I like your last observation the best! It is indeed somewhat whimsical to argue through this medium..... Tax cutting was pushed by Republicans. An element of reform, that is, the trading off of "tax incentives", which was part of Reagan's intention, but was fought by some Democrats, became a focus of reform minded Democrats like Bradley. He worked with Republicans to find a formula that closed a lot of loopholes as marginal rates were adjusted, not out of conversion to Supply Side economics, but as a matter of fairness, having decided that loopholes were inefficient and corrupting. Kudos to him for that. Deregulation began in the Carter years. I already said that. However, it accelerated during the Reagan years, and again, was mainly accomplished through alliances of Republicans and conservative- to- moderate Democrats. The liberal wing of the party, which is dominant, usually opposed such initiatives. A number of those Democrats who aided the Reagan Revolution subsequently became Republicans, like Phil Gramm. As I said, it was not so much Democrats against Republicans (I was still a Democrat), but conservatives and sometimes moderates against liberals. However, by the 90s, shifts in registration had polarized the parties ideologically even more. It was primarily liberal economists who put forward the argument that the primary issue was debt service, not the size of the debt, when they were defending Keynsianism in earlier decades. There are other arguments as well, for example, that our budgetary process should resemble business accounting, and take account of borrowing for capital expenditures, which is often wise and generates additional revenue down the line. Supply side accepts those arguments. But the main proof is that we have not suffered from deficits all this time. Credit has not been crowded, or we would be in an inflationary period, as the Fed tried to compensate. None of the dire effects predicted have transpired. And they will not, although it is desirable to gain control of deficits. As I said, though, there was a marked drop off from the high point towards the end of Reagan's first term, and the end of the term, not merely as a matter of revenue collected during a boom, but of expenditures for certain social programs being reduced, as people get work and health insurance and so on. In the end, the marginal rates were cut markedly, and have not risen much since, and most industries are less rigidly controlled than they had been in the 70s. Whoever you want to credit, these are the conditions of our present prosperity, and they are associated with Reagan. It is like Free Trade: Clinton and Gore are to be commended for their support of NAFTA and the liberalization of GATT, but they were not primarily backed by their own party, but by the GOP. Some Democrats can always be found who did something worthwhile, but the party consistently pushing economic liberalization is Republican......