Word: reaganism
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...agree on. Recently, Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and columnist for the New York Times - and a steadfast Obama cheerleader - wrote a column ripping Beijing for its "outrageous" currency policy. He was followed late last week by Martin Feldstein, a former chief economic adviser to Ronald Reagan, who made a similar argument in the pages of the Financial Times. Both noted that the RMB-dollar peg is badly hurting economies in Europe and East Asia and that if Obama raises this issue in Beijing (as he surely will), he'll have tacit backing from a lot of precincts...
...second prevailing myth of the Reagan Administration, quietly peddled by budget director David Stockman, went like this: O.K., supply-side economics is a phony, but we can use the growth of budget deficits as an argument for limiting the growth of government. That didn't work out so well either. The public demanded its entitlement programs - deficits be damned - and a strong defense, and loved having politicians who secured funding for a Yo-Yo Hall of Fame in their district. Deficits grew until the combined actions of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton caused the deficits to stop growing...
...even successful tax increases are never remembered fondly. Cheney's mythology has prevailed. The rosy fantasy of Reagan's tax-cutting has been coupled with the dread toll of Democrats - from Walter Mondale to John Kerry - who got clobbered for hinting that they might want to, uh, raise revenues. An antitax fetishism has overwhelmed both parties. Along the way, despite the melodramatic rhetoric, the actual rate of federal taxation has wobbled a bit, from a high of 20.9% of GDP in 2000 to a recession-driven low of 17.7% last year, but averages out to just under 19% from...
...national scandal that we're nowhere close to having a reasonable discussion about taxes. A Reagan-size increase probably would be unwise right now, given the shaky economy. But the conversation will become unavoidable next year, when the Bush tax cuts expire. A restoration of the Clinton rates would go a long way toward paying down the Bush deficits and the assorted Bush-Obama federal bailouts and creating some breathing space if health reform costs more than expected. One hopes that Democrats, and fiscally responsible Republicans, will locate the backbone between now and then to do the right thing...
...Republican heavyweights such as Bob Dole and Bill Frist have been pushing current party leaders on Capitol Hill to work with Democrats on health-care reform, which increasingly looks like it will pass in some form. And even a few of their own have begun to show impatience. "Ronald Reagan always had a positive, forward-looking agenda, and I think that was a significant strategy that worked for the Republicans back then," says Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican Representative from California. "We've got some very tangible alternatives. I just think we should just be promoting them more. Too much politics...