Paragraph of the Day (Reaganomics Edition)
“Economic conditions are entirely different today than they were in Reagan’s era, and different conditions demand different policies. Those who say otherwise are simply engaging in cookie-cutter economics — proposing whatever was popular and seemed to work once, without regard to changing circumstances”—Bruce Barlett in a WaPo piece entitled “Why the GOP should stop invoking Reaganomics.”
The whole piece is worth a read, and the sentiment above underscores one of the major problems with the current GOP: they are not only backwards looking in terms of where their ideas are coming from, they do no understand the the basic premises of what they are asserting. Just evoking Reagan and calling for tax cuts as the sine qua non of policy is ultimately a wholly unserious approach to the complex and important job of actually governing.
Bruce Bartlett is one of the few remaining Republicans able to think for himself. Frum and Sullivan are two others.
Amen. Too bad Republicans have exiled Bartlett and won’t even consider what he is saying.
When have they ever?
The GOP has exactly zero interest in “governing”.
@Hey Norm: I don’t know. Since Frum moved from his blog to Daily Beast and Newsweek, he’s been sounding pretty orthodox. His response to Sullivan’s Obama piece in Newsweek was pretty awful. I think someone hinted they might let him back on the bus if he toes the line.
At least Bartlett is honest enough to say they caused the ’81 recession and that growth afterwards was average, not wonderful. I lived through that recession and had to sell a house on land contract because mortgage interest rates had exceeded the MI usury law. The great accomplishment of Reaganomics was to make 6% unemployment look good.