Word: thumbscrew
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...really attack inflation, high interest rates and unemployment? Reagan rammed through Congress his radical tax-reduction scheme and some curbs on domestic spending. Just as important, he supported the harsh restraints already being applied by the Federal Reserve Board under Paul Volcker. Inflation succumbed, at last, to the thumbscrew treatment after Reagan waited out the most severe recession since the 1930s. This painful therapy, together with the borrowing binge required to finance the budget and trade deficits, produced the economic expansion now in its seventh year. Today, with unemployment at a 14-year low of 5.3% and inflation...