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Paul Krugman Criticizes Reaganomics Here's how to defend it Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics Krugman proves that a crafty, educated man can make statistics say whatever he wants them to. It's all about how you aggregate or disaggregate them and how wide or narrow an angle your snapshot captures.He showcases the blazing hot growth of the 50's and 60's that was the inevitable result of post-WW II rebuilding, and then criticizes Reagan because his growth didn't measure up to this impossible-to-maintain pace. So why does Fama (Eugene Fama, who trumpets the irrefutable success of Reaganomics) believe that something wonderful happened...

Introduction: The former Global Affairs editor of MONEYWORLD, Richard Maybury is one of the most respected business and economics analysts in America. His articles have appeared in major publications. Books include "Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?" "Whatever Happened to Justice?" and "Evaluating Books: What Would Thomas Jefferson Think of This?" His current interest is "The Coming Great War." His writings have been endorsed by top business leaders, and he is a consultant to investment firms in the U.S. and Europe. He is editor of the newsletter Richard Maybury's U.S. & World Early Warning Report. Daily Bell: We understand that your...

Barack Obama says he plans to cut taxes for 95 percent of American workers. That sounds terrific, but there are three problems. One, it is meant to draw attention from the real core of the Obama tax plan: proposed increases in every major federal tax. Two, the structure of the cuts will create perverse incentives. And three, many of the people receiving “tax cuts” don’t pay taxes to begin with, meaning they’ll be in effect getting welfare. The first point requires but a simple list. Obama proposes to raise the top two individual income tax rates by 25 percent or...

LIVE VOTE What should Congress do next now that the House has rejected the $700 billion Wall Street bailout? [ ] Renegotiate the package so it can be passed quickly. [ ] Come up with a new plan. [X] Nothing. Let the markets sort it out.

1976 / 2008 Deja Vu All Over Again 1976: Prime lending rate of 7.5%, unemployment at 7.8%. A Republican adminsitration (Ford) that was clueless about economics (price freezes, asking people to wear WIN, whip inflation now, buttons.) We were still reeling from a gas crisis that had seen gas shortages and lines at the pumps that often wrapped around a city block. On the other hand, things were looking up around the world. The Ford administration had completed several treaties with the Soviet Union and turned the bear into a cub. Islamic terrorists had come to everyone's attention at the...

Debunking Reagan's Debunker Rich Karlgaard 02.25.08, 12:00 AM ET Last month during Bill Bennett's radio show, Morning in America, Bill asked me about a Paul Krugman column in the New York Times entitled, "Debunking the Reagan Myth." The title speaks for itself. Here are key Krugman passages: "[Reaganomics] did fail. The Reagan economy was a one-hit wonder. Yes, there was a boom in the mid-1980s, as the economy recovered from a severe recession. But while the rich got much richer, there was little sustained economic improvement for most Americans." "When the inevitable recession arrived, people felt betrayed--a sense of betrayal...

Reaganomics Hits France [Larry Kudlow] Now that French voters are giving him a decisive parliamentary majority, President Nicolas Sarkozy is going to launch a pro-growth, tax cutting, deregulation, reform plan. In other words, Reaganomics finally comes to France. Here at home, all the Democrats running for president (except New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson) want to raise personal and corporate taxes. They want to punish profits. So, let me get this right: while Reaganomics spreads from Eastern Europe—with low flat tax plans proliferating everywhere—into Western Europe, the supply-side model still has not infiltrated the Democratic party. And to make matters worse,...

Former top Reagan adviser Ed Meese said last night that New York Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer was dreaming if he thinks the Reagan vision of limited government is dead. “Reaganism is alive and kicking,” Meese told the State Policy Network, a group of representatives from free market think-tanks from across America yesterday evening at the Heritage Foundation. Meese was responding to statements Schumer had made to the editors of the New York Daily News early this week. “The old Reagan theory which dominated—which is, 'Government is bad, it's out of touch, chop off its hands as soon as it moves’...

Chuck swung by the Daily News for an editorial board meeting this morning, which you'll be able to read more about in tomorrow's News. A couple of tidbits from his broader discussion (forthcoming in book form) of how he sees the shifting terrain and the Democrats' edge struck me: "We're in better shape than [Republicans] are, because they don't realize that Reaganomics is dead, that the Reagan philosophy is dead," he said. "We realize that New Deal democracy, which is still our paradigm, which is sort of appeal to each group ... that doesn't work any more." He had said...

Philanthropy Expert: Conservatives Are More Generous By Frank Brieaddy Religion News Service SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks is about to become the darling of the religious right in America -- and it's making him nervous. The child of academics, raised in a liberal household and educated in the liberal arts, Brooks has written a book that concludes religious conservatives donate far more money than secular liberals to all sorts of charitable activities, irrespective of income.

This Labor Day weekend, millions of American workers will enjoy barbeques and spend quality time with their families. They should also celebrate that in 2006 they keep more of the fruits of their labor than they could three years ago—and there’s so much more fruit to go around, too. Thanks to the tax relief that President Bush signed into law on May 28, 2003, the economy is strong, jobs are plentiful, and American workers hold on to more of their paychecks each week and face lower taxes on their savings and investments for the future. In 2003, many commentators criticized...

Twenty-five years ago this weekend, Ronald Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act. The bill cut personal income tax rates by 25% across the board, indexed tax brackets for inflation and reduced the corporate income tax rate. The anniversary is worth commemorating as a seminal moment that continues to influence policy for the better in the U.S., and around the globe. The achievement of Reaganomics can only be fully understood by recalling the miserable state of affairs a quarter-century ago. Newsweek summarized the national mood when it wrote in 1981 that Reagan "inherits the most dangerous economic crisis since Franklin...

Reaganomics and corporate culture must take their share of the blame for a rash of workplace killings.This past Sunday saw yet another American workplace rage massacre by a disgruntled employee. A 22-year-old worker at a Safeway grocery chain warehouse in Denver, Colorado, fired a handgun at his co-workers, killing one and wounding five, and set several fires in an attempt to burn down the massive 1.3 million square foot structure where he worked, before he was finally gunned down by police. "I can't imagine this happening out here. It could happen anywhere." This was how one employee, Raymond Rivas, reacted...

Stop Lying About Tax Cuts March 29, 2006 By Herman Cain Every good liberal will tell you that low tax rates cause tax revenues to drop, hurt the economy, benefit only the wealthy and cause skyrocketing budget deficits. A Wall Street Journal article last week blew a hole in those liberal lies. The Journal reported that federal tax revenues for the first five months of fiscal year 2006 are up 10.3 percent from the same period a year ago. The 2006 revenue growth adds to a 15 percent tax revenue increase from 2004 to 2005. This good fortune for U.S....

Until October 18, 2005, many readers of The New York Times had probably never heard of Bruce Bartlett or the National Center for Policy Analysis. They likely had no idea that there was a conservative think tank based in Dallas, especially one that possesses clout inside the Beltway. And they probably thought little of the story announcing his firing, buried on page 24. If anything, they might have been struck by the headline--"In Sign of Conservative Split, A Commentator Is Dismissed"--which proved that the great divide in the Republican Party had grown an inch wider. As Richard Stevenson pointed out...

Twenty-five years ago today, Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th President of the United States promising less intrusive government, lower tax rates and victory over communism. On that same day, the American hostages in Iran were freed after 444 days of captivity. If the story of history is one long and arduous march toward freedom, this was a momentous day well worth commemorating. All the more so because over this 25-year period prosperity has been the rule, not the exception, for America--in stark contrast to the stagflationary 1970s. Perhaps the greatest tribute to the success of Reaganomics is that,...

Reaganomics, 25 years later. Friday, January 20, 2006 12:01 a.m. Twenty-five years ago today, Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th President of the United States promising less intrusive government, lower tax rates and victory over communism. On that same day, the American hostages in Iran were freed after 444 days of captivity. If the story of history is one long and arduous march toward freedom, this was a momentous day well worth commemorating.

Can you imagine the Dow Jones Industrial Average at, say, 3000? Can you visualize inflation and interests in double digits? And per capita income maybe two-thirds of what it is now? It's not so difficult to see those things in your mind's eye -- provided you can also visualize the American people re-electing the 39th president, Jimmy Carter. Instead, 25 years ago today, on November 4, 1980, the voters in 44 states chose Ronald Reagan. So this day, like any happy anniversary, is worth celebrating. But in addition, we should remember that while Reagan demonstrated the importance of optimism, another...

I am 16 years old and in the speech and debate team at my high school. Our current topic for debate is: "Should the United States federal government fund Hurricane Katrina relief and rebuilding by ending President Bush's tax cuts?" I strongly disagree with the proposition, but I need more evidence and reasons to back up my argument. Suggestions and facts would be greatly appreciated!!

July 31 marks the 93rd birthday of the world's foremost living economist, Milton Friedman. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Economic Science, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Medal of Science, Friedman advances the principles of individual choice by popularizing ideas that include school vouchers and private retirement accounts. Through essays, speeches, and books such as Capitalism and Freedom, and Free to Choose, Friedman champions the ideas of liberty. "Milton Friedman has done more than defend freedom as an abstract ideal," President George W. Bush recently said, "He has creatively applied the power of freedom to the...

Themes: Leadership, Foreign policy (USA), Foreign policy (USSR and successor states), Conservatism, Autobiographical comments We have lost a great president, a great American, and a great man, and I have lost a dear friend. In his lifetime, Ronald Reagan was such a cheerful and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget what daunting historic tasks he set himself. He sought to mend AmericaÍs wounded spirit, to restore the strength of the free world, and to free the slaves of communism. These were causes hard to accomplish and heavy with risk, yet they were pursued with almost a lightness...

As legend has it the famous Laffer Curve was first drawn by economist Arthur Laffer in 1974 on a cocktail napkin during a small dinner meeting... attended by the late Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley and such high-powered policy makers as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. The Laffer Curve helped launch the Reaganomics Revolution here at home and a frenzy of tax rate cutting around the globe.... The theory is really one of the simplest concepts in economics. Yet its logic continues to elude the class-warfare lobby whose disbelief is unburdened by the multiple real-life examples which validate its...

While the mainstream media cut down thousands of trees in order to produce reams of newspaper reports on whether President Bush is reducing the deficit or not, the really important aspect of the budget submission is that it is pro-growth. On Kudlow & Cramer I asked OMB director Josh Bolten if the President’s proposal to make the tax cuts permanent was in the budget. He answered yes. This is crucial. Bush is not backing off. And it also sends an important message to Sen. Connie Mack’s tax reform commission that a 15 percent tax-rate on capital gains and dividends, along...

Journalist Ron Suskind is one-stop shopping for Bush administration castaways. But what if John DiIulio -- Suskind gave him a platform in Esquire magazine in 2002 to call the administration "the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis" -- and Paul O'Neill had been shopping a conservative critique of Bush? Would Suskind have cracked open his notebook? Not likely. Few events excite liberal journalists more than the inevitable defection of an "insider" from a Republican administration, provided that the defector is a liberal who is telling the media what it wants to hear. What interests the Suskinds are not conservative defectors but...

'Shanghai Surprise" may be the worst movie Sean Penn ever made - but at least he escaped the 1986 shoot without having to stand trial for attempted murder. In the new bio, "Sean Penn: His Life and Times," the Oscar-winner ruefully recalls that he'd just arrived in his hotel room on the Chinese island of Macao when a strange man lunged at him. Aided by his personal assistant (who was also his kickboxing coach), Penn says, he "grabbed the guy, ran him through the room to the balcony and hung him over - on the ninth floor." The guy was...

With the election season coming into the home stretch, the cry of "Tax cuts for the rich!" is ringing out across the land from Democrats desperate to regain power in Washington. Like many other political slogans, its popularity depends on slippery words and sloppy thinking. First of all, just what does "rich" mean? And does it have any relevance to the kinds of tax cuts at issue? The recent release of some of Teresa Heinz Kerry's tax records reveals as much about the confusion over this issue as it does about her financial situation. The Kerrys are clearly rich, with...

Since Ronald Reagan's death, many inspiring speeches have been delivered and adulatory articles written about his presidency. But few of the tributes have recognized Reagan's greatest achievement, which was indispensable to the U.S. triumph in the Cold War and is crucial for the current war on terrorism. Reagan tapped the creativity of America's entrepreneurs to bring about a global, not just a national, economic revolution. Poets describe creativity as "Promethean," referring to the mythical hero who brought fire to the earth. A Promethean era in world history, the Reagan presidency lit the fires of American creativity - and they have...

Over the coming weeks and months, we are likely to hear several ideas for honoring Ronald Reagan’s presidency: from putting his likeness on the $10 bill to adding that famous smile to Mt. Rushmore. While these are all thoughtful symbolic gestures, the best way for Americans to honor his legacy is to continue the economic policies he championed. Here in New York City, that means lowering taxes and limiting regulations on businesses so we can create jobs, grow our economy, and enable New Yorkers to build better lives for themselves and their families. President Reagan once said, “Government's view of...

Ask a good liberal about Reaganomics and he'll say three things: Reagan tried to make ketchup a vegetable, he flooded the country in red ink, and he was mean-spirited about the poor, like when he'd tell the story about the Cadillac-ensconced "Chicago welfare queen" who had 80 names, 30 addresses and 12 Social Security cards. In fact, the real income (adjusted for inflation) of the poorest fifth of U.S. households increased by 12 percent in the 1980s, reversing a 17 percent slide between 1979 and 1983 before the economic growth of the Reagan era kicked in. The poverty population, after...

Ask a good liberal about Reaganomics and he’ll say three things: Reagan tried to make ketchup a vegetable, he flooded the country in red ink, and he was mean-spirited about the poor, like when he’d tell the story about the Cadillac-ensconced “Chicago welfare queen” who had 80 names, 30 addresses and 12 Social Security cards. In fact, the real income (adjusted for inflation) of the poorest fifth of U.S. households increased by 12 percent in the 1980s, reversing a 17 percent slide between 1979 and 1983 before the economic growth of the Reagan era kicked in. The poverty population, after...

Poisonous Fog At the heart of this poisonous fog of misinformation is the attack on the very legitimacy of Reaganomics itself. The attack comes from two angles. The first asserts that the economic ideas espoused by Ronald Reagan came from somewhat disreputable sources, implying that if the messengers are not expert the message must be wrong. Tales about that Reagan listened to (besides himself) only a handful of non-economists — in particular Jude Wanniski and George Gilder. The truth of the matter is that, first, Wanniski and Gilder have said many sensible things about economics, and second, they were not...

It's an article of faith among liberal journalists that Ronald Reagan's economic policies were bad for African-Americans - though, in fact, government statistics show that nothing could be further from the truth. "As he left office, a Lou Harris poll found nearly 80 percent of blacks considered his administration oppressive," CNN correspondent Adaora Udoji noted to the Rev. Jesse Jackson Tuesday night. Jackson readily concurred, acknowledging that Reagan's relationship with blacks was "very hostile." In an earlier CNN interview Jackson observed, "Reagan believed in states' rights and Jefferson Davis, I believe in the Union and Abraham Lincoln." Even in less...

Ronald Reagan did some fine things, but the economic theory that bears his name was not one of them. Reaganomics made the world safe for today's reckless tax-cutting. And the public hardly understands the social upheaval these policies will soon unleash. Reaganomics held that cutting taxes and reducing the size of government would let loose the nation's entrepreneurial juices and lead to economic growth. Note that the theory comes in two parts. The fun part is cutting taxes. The not-so-fun part is reducing government. Do the first part without the second, and you end up with budget deficits and an...

If you weren't around in 1980, or you were insufficiently sensitized to key world realities, you cannot know how bad things really were — hence the extent to which the nation required, the world required, a catalytic change artist like Ronald Reagan. Regarding Reagan, this is an hour of self-serving hagiography, of transmogrifying anthropomorphism — and comically by many in the press who spent seemingly their every waking hour ripping him and detesting everything he tried. Reagan was not a saint, not a god in human form. Nor was he the Lucifer of leftist desire. He was merely a man...

It's a magnificent irony. Amid all the affection and adulation for Ronald Reagan, one of his greatest achievements stands all but overlooked. He helped subdue double-digit inflation, setting the stage for the prolonged economic expansions of the 1980s and 1990s. High inflation largely brought Reagan to power; low inflation made his presidency popular and successful. We forget now how much inflation once frightened Americans. In 1979 Daniel Yankelovich -- a leading student of post-World War II public opinion -- wrote this: "For the public today, inflation has the kind of dominance that no other issue has had since World War...

The Myths of Reaganomics by Murray N. Rothbard [Posted June 9, 2004] This memo to Mises Institute members was written in late 1987, and published in "The Free Market Reader," LH Rockwell, Jr., ed., 1988, pp. 3342–362 and is posted on Mises.org in an edited edition. I come to bury Reaganomics, not to praise it. How well has Reaganomics achieved its own goals? Perhaps the best way of discovering those goals is to recall the heady days of Ronald Reagan's first campaign for the presidency, especially before his triumph at the Republican National Convention in 1980. In general terms, Reagan...

<p>"The best sign that our economic program is working," former President Ronald Reagan once quipped during his second term, "is that they don't call it 'Reaganomics' anymore." Indeed, the phenomenal success of Reaganomics can be discerned easily by examining the performance of the U.S. economy before he arrived, while he was in office and after he departed.</p>

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Whether you adored or abhorred Ronald Reagan's presidency, there's no doubt that his economic philosophy lives on today in the policies of President Bush. Tax cuts were certainly the centerpiece of "Reaganomics." One of the lions of the supply side economics movement, Jude Wanniski, says focusing on the power of tax cuts was the key to Reagan getting elected in 1980, and ultimately the key to his greatness. This article draws the real parrallels between Reagan and Bush policies. Likewise, George Bush championed tax cuts when budget hawks among the Republicans said the nation couldn't afford...

NEW YORK (AP) -- As president, he crushed one of the few labor unions whose endorsement he won as a candidate. He had almost no schooling in economics but confidently marshaled sweeping reforms, motivated partly by a decades-old grudge over the whopping tax bills he incurred as a World War II-era film star. President Ronald Reagan's agenda for the economy and business was wide-ranging and far from subtle. But those broad brush strokes of policy were lasting, helping to redefine economic conservatism and recast government's relationship with business and labor in ways that are still very much in effect today,...

A VERY long read, skip ahead if you want to get past the Cold War history Introduction America's longest war was in a sense, not a traditional war. The United States did not engage in any direct conflict or battle with its enemy, nor were any direct shots fired. Yet this, war, which lasted for over forty years, put people in such a state of fear that was unprecedented with any previous American conflicts. Known as the Cold War, it describes the "era of doubtfulness and distrust between the Western and Eastern powers" in the post World War II world....

Happy birthday, Mr. President — that's President Ronald Reagan, who turned 93 on Friday. Fittingly, the lead economic story in the Wall Street Journal that day described how the communist government in China has decided to slash tax rates on both foreign and domestic businesses. What a perfect present for the Gipper. "It's a lot like Reaganonics," deputy finance minister Lou Jiwei said in the story. "We feel that only through simplifying things and lowering tax rates will revenue collection become more efficient." Sounds a lot like the Laffer Curve, doesn't it? And Mr. Lou had more: "At the same...

The Left Says:"The 1980s were "a time of Reaganomics, burgeoning yuppies, and the Decade of Greed." Source: Source: Matt Lauer, NBC Today Show, December 30, 2003, as cited by the Media Research Center's CyberAlert of December 31, 2003. What Conservatives Think:Conservatives think it is odd that economic growth when a conservative is president is called "greed," while economic growth when a liberal is president is called "prosperity." Nonetheless, here are facts about the 1980s: From 1982 through 1989, the years President Reagan's economic policies were in effect, corporate contributions to charities grew an average of 10 percent per year, outstripping...

Letter to the Editor After reading Greg Ehrhardt's letter to the editor titled, "Note to Democrats: The rich are here to stay," I was delighted someone finally pointed out many college students are deficient in their knowledge of economic issues. My hope was that maybe Ehrhardt would have bothered to read a history book, or at least an economics book, before he wrote this response. As I read his letter, I felt a nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach, and an overwhelming sense of impending doom that could only be caused by one thing: Republican rhetoric. It seems...

Remember "voodoo economics"? The phrase comes from the first President Bush. During the 1980 Republican presidential primaries, the current president's father famously denounced Ronald Reagan's supply-side economics as "voodoo economics." What seemed like exotic hocus-pocus to the elder George Bush was the idea that if you cut taxes, people might work more, and hence earn more, which would then result in higher tax revenues. I never understood why Bush thought this was akin to Haitian head-shrinking and black magic.Regardless, voodoo economics became known as "Reaganomics" once the Gipper was elected and the terrible 1980-1982 recession kicked in. Today it's difficult...

Ambassador Paul Bremer, the US civilian administrator in Iraq, spoke Sunday at the extraordinary meeting of the World Economic Forum, laying bare an agenda that stressed economic over political reform. "The nation's liberation would be incomplete if Iraqis were secure in their persons but not their property," said Bremer to an audience of about 1000 participants packed into a poorly air-conditioned tent at this sweltering Jordanian resort. Attempting to overcome a tide of pessimism about conditions in Iraq, Bremer noted the recent deployment of 30,000 Iraqi policemen, the emergence of 100 newspapers, the creation of district advisory councils, and the...

Democrats and the Kennedys are once again proving to be hypocrite fools suffering from the famous case of liberal amnesia. The controversy this time stems from John F. Kennedy in advertisements that support President Bush's new tax cut plan. Senator Ted Kennedy is fuming over JFK's name and image being used to support tax cuts, something he vehemently opposes. These ads in question compare the massive tax cuts of JFK to those of Reagan and Bush, and rightfully so. This ordeal is only a small part of the larger problem; that modern day Democrats and socialists have hijacked the good...

<p>President Bush, having successfully dealt with Saddam Hussein, is now turning his attention to the economy, and particularly to tax policy. Unfortunately, even here he has to deal with the Sahhaf Phenomenon — the tendency of people who have seen something with their very own eyes to protest that it didn't happen. The Iraqi minister of information, Mohammed al-Sahhaf, was a comical example of this, but there are many editorialists and commentators who seem to be victims of the same willful blindness on basic matters of national economic policy.</p>

Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone, and thought about the best way to defend your own argument an hour later after the debate was over? This was my experience today with my left wing, socialistic, kool-aid drinking, communist, rat of a professor. He made a comment about taxing the rich because they have all the money, and him and I started debating. First I said that I am personally not in favor of taxing the rich because when you tax wealthy people (Whatever you definition of wealthy may be) Whenever you tax something you get less of...

<p>Media-described conservatives, assorted big shots and other supporters of President Bush have lionized his economic stimulus package formally unveiled recently in Chicago as born-again "Reaganomics." No more fooling around any more, folks; now that the G.O.P. is running the show throughout Washington, we're told, Bush can let it all hang out and really get serious about helping out the taxpayers. And he's just taken a giant step toward doing that, and giving the U.S. economy an admittedly needed positive jolt, by crafting a package of investment credits and tax changes that is said to have a total "cost" to the federal government of $670 billion over ten years.</p>