Why do people still believe in Reaganomics? (judgment, pension, taxes)
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The United States was found on Libertarian principles of small government and our Constitution drafted accordingly. By mostly sticking to those ideals for a couple hundred years, the U.S. became the greatest superpower in the history of civilization.
The correct term for our government is federalism. Also, the growth of our nation cam after 1935's Wagner Act was passed that lead to one of the largest middle class of all time. The middle class has been dwindling since Reagan's beat down of the American working class, and his shift of the tax burden on to them.
The biggest delusion I can see in this thread is the Lefties' compulsion to cling to their belief that six years of tinkering by Big Brother has accomplished anything beyond a larger bureaucratic dead weight -- just as FDR's tinkering prolonged the Great Depression of the Thirties (until the Supreme Court invalidated the folly of the National Recovery Act -- looks like we can't hope for similar help here since Obama is set upon "packing" the High Court with Leftist mediocrities).
It's obvious that the would-be "fine-tuners" don't have a clue what to do. And most of the lawsuit-and-lottery-ticket crowd at the center of their coalition will swallow anything that's fed to them.
The biggest delusion I can see in this thread is the Lefties' compulsion to cling to their belief that six years of tinkering by Big Brother has accomplished anything beyond a larger bureaucratic dead weight -- just as FDR's tinkering prolonged the Great Depression of the Thirties (until the Supreme Court invalidated the folly of the National Recovery Act -- looks like we can't hope for similar help here since Obama is set upon "packing" the High Court with Leftist mediocrities).
It's obvious that the would-be "fine-tuners" don't have a clue what to do. And most of the lawsuit-and-lottery-ticket crowd at the center of their coalition will swallow anything that's fed to them.
The deficit is falling every year, so I fail to see the larger bureaucracy. The number of federal employees is little changed from the previous administration, and significantly fewer than the Reagan administration.
I don't think you understand what "packing" the Supreme Court means. Packing was a threat by FDR, never carried out, to increase the number of Justices on the Court. The threat was in part a response to a series of defeats of New Deal legislation at the Court. Possibly in response to that threat, possibly for other reasons, the Court changed direction in 1936 and 1937, upholding New Deal legislation in a series of cases.
Justices Kagan and Sotomayor were both accomplished lawyers. Kagan was the Solicitor General (probably the highest lawyer in the land), White House counsel, and has been a professor and Dean at Harvard Law. Sotomayor was a prosecutor in New York. She was a federal trial judge and a federal appellate judge (on probably the second most important appellate court in the United States after the D.C. Circuit). The one thing they are not, certainly, is "mediocrities."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Led Zeppelin
And so, you are baffled that a nation carrying a 50 trillion dollar overall debt load, which borrows roughly 38 percent of it's annual budget every year at 6 percent interest from a privately held bank, is having problems?
The only thing baffling is your deployment of inaccurate statistics. The national debt is ~$17 trillion. The deficit is ~$550 billion, which is ~15% of the federal budget. The interest rate on federal debt is around 1.25% these days.
Reaganomics allows people to feel good about hating poor people and worshipping rich people. It reinforces the Just World fallacy that absolves their guilt over doing nothing to help their neighbors. People believe it works in spite of substantial evidence to the contary because they really, really want to believe it.
Maybe the tendency of many to look at history through rose-colored glasses.
And/or choose to ignore factual based data. Rhetoric like "Reganomics" kills middle class financial interests. Regan also first coined the term "welfare queen" in a made up story about a Black mother on welfare in Chicago.
Fast fwd 30 yrs and everyone who is poor, yet not poor enough for welfare, is still hating on these mythical welfare queens.
P
* Rising inequality has been a secular trend that has gone back to the early 80s and could care less about party lines--instead look at all gutting of the middle class and the simple nature of globalization, led by China and India coming back "online" after self-imposed isolation and incompetence. Within that process we see both parties and their rich constituents loving the outsourcing.
*
Other developed industrialized countries such as Canada, other Western European countries also face globalization trends, but they don't experience the ramp up in general income inequality that the US has. So it would be fallacious to attribute that as a major driver of income inequality.
The United States was found on Libertarian principles of small government and our Constitution drafted accordingly. By mostly sticking to those ideals for a couple hundred years, the U.S. became the greatest superpower in the history of civilization.
It doesn't take a PHD in Economics to realize that government intervention is the greatest propellant in the growing wealth divide. People who have substantial investments in equity markets are partying like its 1999, while the median family income and net worth have decreased over the same period of time. Why? The Federal Reserve continues to suppress interest rates, causing the people who have a lot of money to put it in equity markets rather than other places, driving up stock prices. The system works... for them. They all make more money. The average family/wage earner does not.
I think the ideological divide is best represented with the current controversy over corporate inversions. The corporate tax rate in the US is 35%. Ireland's is 12.5%, the UK's is 23% and so on. Companies want to be taxed on most of their earnings at a lower rate so they can make more money. That's not evil corporations at work, but human nature. Good luck changing that.
The "anti-Reaganomics" crowd is looking for a way to punish companies that try to legally spend less of THEIR money on taxes. The Reaganomics crowd is trying to make it so that the tax rate is competitive enough that business WANT to be based here. Pretty simple.
It doesn't matter how much legislation you pass, the big companies will find a way to work the system. The small companies will not. They will pay the 35% tax rate and hire fewer people, make smaller capital investments and fail more often. They will have to pay their employees less and offer fewer benefits. Every dollar only contains 100 cents. If you have to give away the first 35 instead of the first 12.5, you won't be able to spend as much on other things.
If you like the European nanny state model, go live there. When those countries run out of money, the US will probably bail them out as usual. Of course that's assuming that we don't become one of them.
To answer the OP's question, it's because they understand economics and human nature instead of relying on naive idealism, anecdote and unproven theory.
As a Libertarian myself I approve of this message.
id rather have "trickle down" economics any day than "welfare up" which we currently have
Reagan believed in the American dream in the working spirit in being all you can be- just get government out of the way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!
we are almost 20 trillion in debt and no one seems to care- the greased politicians get golden parachutes and never have to worry
congress should not be paid if they don't balance the budget
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