Putting Reaganomics Out of Our Misery

By Jeff Schweitzer

Let’s give credit where credit is due!

"If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all." This was the proclamation from the same president, Ronald Reagan, who went on to claim that trees were bigger polluters than cars and factories. He was not joking.

Reagan claimed government was the problem, not the solution. He wanted to get government "off people's back." Reagan came into office leading the very government for which he had such great contempt on the basis of three ridiculous promises that only a gullible electorate could swallow. He would simultaneously cut taxes, cut the deficit and raise military spending.

Well, he blew two out of three. The hero of the right proposed the largest tax increase in U.S. history at that time, expanded the size of the federal government to historically bloated levels, and created a huge debt that dwarfed all who came before him. He raised deficit spending to levels higher than at any time since World War II.

The legacy of Reaganomics is a $700 billion government bailout of unregulated markets, including the now-notorious credit default swaps, and a national debt exceeding $10 trillion, a number so large the digits can no longer be tracked on the Times Square Debt Clock. We now have big government, failed markets and unearthly debts, all a present from the grave of the former B-list actor.

He wanted to reduce government spending, but in fact exploded federal outlays. He wanted to reduce the marginal tax rate, but instituted the country's largest tax hike. He wanted to reduce regulation, which succeeded in creating monstrous corruption that has brought our economy to its knees.

Compare this to the Clinton years in which a higher tax rate resulted in balanced budgets and stable growth for eight years. With the market meltdown before us, we must finally see that every idea Reagan proposed is a complete, utter disastrous failure.

Editor's Note: And let’s not forget some of us want to put his image on Mount Rushmore. Instead of Reagan’s image, we may be substituting carved up chunks of wrecked and missing middle class America.

Jeff Schweitzer is a Marine Biologist (A real one not like the one George Castanza played on Seinfeld.) and former Clinton White House Science Adviser. This article was first posted in the Huffington Post, October 14, 2008.