Ronald Reagan was a failure on the foreign stage and we’re spending trillions of dollars trying to clean up the messes he left even today. But as damaging as he was on the foreign state he’s done even more harm at home the last 40 years with the wonderful creation of “trickle down economics”.
Ever since Reagan gutted the tax code for his rich friends republicans have been pushing for lower and lower rates and have repeated that “tax cuts create jobs and pay for themselves” so many times that many American take this as a fact. If Tax cuts are so great for the economy and jobs why did Reagan have a worse jobs record than Bill Clinton who raised taxes and Jimmy Carter who had higher taxes?
Reagan got his massive tax cuts in 1981 and it did nothing to help the jobs market, and by 1984 unemployment was still at 7.2% and what brought Reagan out of a recession? No it wasn’t tax cuts but government spending which grew by 15% in the months following Reagans election when by comparison President Obama had to get out of a recession while shrinking government spending by 7% over the same time period. That’s right the great conservative Ronald Reagan exploded government spending and the size of government because even he knew that was the quickest way out of a recession.
After his tax cuts it was obvious that it blew a hole in the deficit and debt so he raised taxes more times than any president in history including for the first time ever taxing social security benefits. He paid for the tax cuts of the rich and powerful on the backs of seniors and middle class and republicans have continued that until today.
In 2001 for the first time in history we saw tax cuts while fighting in not one but two wars and it blew a huge hole in the deficit we are still fighting to fill today. These tax cuts cost trillions of dollars and according to some estimates account for about 40% of all the debt America now owes. Mr. Bush came into office with a yearly surplus that was projected to have the debt paid off by 2010 but instead the debt was now almost 10,000,000,000,000 dollars when he left office and his final deficit was over 1 trillion dollars.
When Bush left office he left a depression that most of us haven’t seen in our lifetime but after a few rough months we’ve seen a record run of jobs growth all while taxes were increased on the richest American which follow a jobs boon like no one had seen under President Bill Clinton after he raised taxes. When Obama left office he left a 500,000,000,000 dollar deficit which was less than ½ of what he inherited by a combination of spending cuts (including the military) and tax increases.
Reagan tripled the debt and Bush exploded it after squandering a surplus all with tax cuts and increased government spending while both Bill Clinton and Obama lowered the deficit they inherited with spending cuts and tax increases but republicans will still try and tell you it’s tax cuts that create jobs and lower the deficit.
If you want to see this policy in full effect look at the state of Kansas which was a conservative experiment in what republicans are currently trying to do with America. They blew a hole so big in their budget and deficit they had to close schools early and cut funding across the board.
To put it this way — go to work tomorrow and tell your boss you want a pay cut because it will put more money in your pocket and help you pay bills and that’s what republicans think a decrease in tax revenue does.