Robert Parry: End of the Reagan Narrative?

[marmar]

from Consortium News:



End of the Reagan Narrative?
November 2, 2011

Exclusive: Election 2012 may turn on whether Ronald Reagan’s narrative of evil government and beneficent tax cuts for the rich has finally run its course – and has been replaced by a new narrative demanding government intervention to save the American middle-class, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry


As yet another statue of Ronald Reagan is unveiled – a $1 million one at Washington’s National Airport which was renamed in his honor in the mid-1990s – the key question about the 40th president is whether his long and destructive era is finally coming to an end.

More than any other political figure, it was Ronald Reagan who put America on its present course toward stunning income inequality and into a brave new world of deregulated industries, which were then able to exploit lax government controls to devastate the economy.

It was Reagan who experimented with “supply side economics” which held that slashing the top marginal tax rates for the rich by half or more would eliminate the federal deficit and supposedly help everyone by letting the extra money at the top trickle down.

It was Reagan who declared that “government is the problem” and convinced many middle-class Americans – especially white men – that they should despise “big government” as a threat to their liberty and trust their financial security to the kindness, wisdom and generosity of corporate chieftains. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2011/11/02/end-of-the-reagan-narrative/

[bluestateguy]

1. People were saying the Reagan Era was over after the '08 election too

And yet here we are. We can't even get back to the Clinton era tax rates of the 1990's, which themselves were lower than the rates in the 1970's and during Reagan's first term.

[rrneck]

2. Well... nt

[Skittles]

3. reagan made greed and idiocy fashionable

it is LONG past time to take America back from these fucking thieves

[malaise]

4. Yes the undiluted fuckery known as the neo-liberal trickle down

model has been utterly and completely discredited