Dr. Walter Heller ponders Reaganomics - 1982
By Gordonskene Friday Oct 30, 2009 6:00pm
(Dr. Walter Heller - tried to save Reagan from himself - didn't work)
With word about the latest recession being "over", I was reminded about the last time we had a deep recession in the 1980s and how we all became familiar with the phrases "Reaganomics", Supply-Side and Voodoo-Economics.
Back in the 80s there was 10% unemployment (on paper) and it felt like it lasted forever. Former Kennedy and Johnson Economic adviser Dr. Walter Heller had a few observations to make when he was interviewed on Face The Nation in 1982.
Dr. Walter Heller: “Had the Carter program, and unfortunately it was rather forgettable, but had the Carter program been enacted, we would be in much better shape today. People seem to forget that Carter, in October of the last year of his presidency proposed a tax program that made just excellent sense. It was much smaller than the President’s program, and it concentrated more of its tax cuts, and this is what people forget, on the supply side, so to speak, on true stimulus of government investment. Instead of having enormous deficits that scare the public and Wall Street, we would have had much more moderate deficits, we’d be much better off today.”
Perhaps hindsight is 20/20 but it's interesting to speculate what might have happened had the Carter program been enacted.
But no, The Great Communicator had a better idea . . or so he said.
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I remember having Heller for MacroEcon on the WestBank, UMN in 1980 or so. Huge class, once a week. TA taught the rest. One TA wrote an equation on the blackboard, then erased it saying that is the last time you will ever see an equation in econ class.
If you want to take an economics class check out Paul Krugman's blog every day.
Ain't that the truth!
The building on the West Bank that houses the econ department is named after him.
You have to admit that the Reagan deficit/debt would look pretty minuscule today. He did double the debt though and Bush I doubled it again and Bush II doubled it yet again. Now Obama is forced to double it again just to get us out of the Bush II/Bush I/Reagan nightmare.
"If we drop tariffs it will open up foreign markets for our exports"
NO...it opened up foreign markets for OUR JOBS!!
Huge Texas Wind Farm's Turbines Will Be Made in China
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009...
that Ronald Reagan is dead.
He's not dead until he's forgotten and nobody dares to repeat anything he did.
It's too bad he didn't die in 1979.
What has been forgotten completely is that one of the main goals of Reagan's tax cuts was to increase federal revenues, turn deficits into surpluses and pay down the national debt. The Reaganites claimed that radical tax cuts were potentially so stimulative that they would increase business activity, and tax collections, by a magnitude far greater than short term loss of revenue. Lower tax rates would actually make deficit spending a thing of the past.
This was illustrated by the infamous Laffer Curve.
It never worked. Reagan cut taxes and ended up tripling the national debt in only 8 years.
Bush 43 cut taxes, started a $2 Trillion war, and doubled the national debt in only 7 years.
The national debt is now 11 times higher than it was in 1980.
"Fiscal Conservatism" as practiced by Republicans is an oxymoronic delusion.
The economy ALWAYS does better under a Democrat!! ALWAYS!! It's a fact.
The republican cure for everthing is always tax cut. The tax cut is put in the bank. There is no increase in demand. And the government deficit grows because the economic growth does not occurs. The cure for a recession that does work is increase government spending on infrastructure. You get immediate job growth and deman growth. And you get long term economic growth due to the new and improve infrastructure. There is a lot of infrastructure work that needs to be done: bridges, water treatment, sewer, schools.
Anyone who believes that this was a recession and it is over is going to be in for a rude awakening.
Over my ass! This is just the beginning of the 2nd REPUBLICAN Great Depression.
Seems to me, that the stimulus and Tarp spending buys us time to get our house in order. Did we? The "too big to fail" financial corporation is preserved, our health care costs are not brought in line with the other industrial countries, and thanks to free trade, we consume more than we produce.
My guess is that we don't get out of the hole we're in, until we stop digging. We can borrow against the future to maintain the status quo, but that can't last forever.
Let's not forget that Carter put solar pannels on the WH some 30 years ago. Where would we be today had we seriously gone down that path?!?
Reagan took them down his first day in office.
A great man that will never get the respect he deserved!
I don't believe for a minute that the republic econimic plan is not working exactly as they want it too. They want to backrupt the gov and kill all entitlement programs.
are also killing the economic. The depression was also precessed by a big tax cut to the rich. The excess money lead to speculation in the stock market which lead to the stock market crash which lead to the great depression. The current crisis seems quite similar.
It really is deja' vu all over again. But the republicans could still care less about an economic meltdown, because they have all the money.
My mom was one of the last group of people was was able to get welfare and financial aid. She became a productive member of society because of it. Reagan took that away. Tell me again why he is such a saint?
sorry to hear about your Mom... that's the type of situation that made me first start to detest Reagan. He was a figurehead... who did tremendous damage to sooo many people. When I hear him held up as such a great guy and wonderful Prez, I remind the person about the Iran-Contra scandal. Enough said.
St. Soociopath, was the patron saint of immoral greed, pathological liars, mean evil con men, and crooks whose capacity for screwing everyone else who is less well-off than them,
And demonizing taxes on the rich, which began the maassive transfer of wealth we have seen.
we've all been getting fooled for a very long time...
Yeah, well, you want to hear another of the great communistmaker's ideas? (Ronnie Raygun was the communistmaker because his support of rightwing regimes in Latin America spread communism.)
His "great idea" was to ask Iran to hold the US hostages until after the election in exchange for illegal weapons sales - the rethugnicans didn't yet have the presidency yet were doing illegal international deals with a foreign government. Raygun used human beings as political pawns for personal benefit. It was also the Raygun administration which armed Saddam Hussein with chemical and biological weapons to then attack the same Iranian country he sold weapons to.
I'd like someone, not connected to war profiteering, to explain exactly how those two acts are defensible.
Reaganomics has destroyed the greatest and most wealthy democracy in history. Before Reagan the U.S. was first in manufacturing, exporting and lending money. We had the highest wages and standards of living in the world.
The "Election" of Ronald Reagan was worst thing to happen to this country in the 20th century.
It was awful then and worse now!
republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness!
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