Stuck in the '80s

[Ohiogal]

An excellent opinion piece by Catherine Rampell of the WaPo.

"Take the GOP economic agenda, which has not been updated in (at least) 30 years.

Supply-siders still run the show, championing tax cuts as a growth elixir while conveniently ignoring their track record. All Trump and his cronies seem to remember is that there was this one time when Ronald Reagan cut taxes, and then .?.?. the economy grew.

They seem to have missed the role that monetary policy and the business cycle played in that mid-’80s growth spurt. Not to mention all the other changes in tax rates over the past century, in both directions, that reveal no discernible relationship between tax levels and long-term growth.

Hence the GOP’s big unfunded tax cut, on the promise we’ll grow our way out of the expense. And when that doesn’t happen, whom will Trump and Republicans blame for emptying the public purse?

Why, Reagan’s favorite villain: the welfare queen!"

More..............

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-gop-just-cant-escape-the-80s/2018/04/16/629d1f0e-41ac-11e8-8569-26fda6b404c7_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9b6ff540a667

[JHB]

1. I'll just leave this post from 2012 out here...

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10021886942

Today I discovered that Grover Norquist agrees with me about something...

It's a conservative meme that liberals are stuck in 1968. The conservative bomb of a movie "An American Carol" had a whole musical number about it complete with choreographed tie-dyed, sandal-wearing, long-gray-haired university professors.

My counter has been that if you're going to reduce it to something dopey like that, then conservatives are stuck in 1978 (give or take a year): taxes are high, the economy is stagnant, crime is high and going up, looting of stores in the blackout and "the Bronx is burning" are still fresh in everyone's minds, Team B confirmed (for conservatives) that the Soviets were just chomping at the bit for world conquest (invading Afghanistan, overthrowing the legitimately-inherited dictatorship in Nicaragua, yadayadayada), every union is just like the mob-controlled Teamsters (and strict union rules cripple business), regulation is too tight, etc. etc. etc. Everything from views that were reasonable for that time to complete paranoid delusions were set in stone (and embossed with Ronald Reagan's profile).

Back to Norquist: from a 2009 "First Person Singular" column in the Washington Post:

When I became 21, I decided that nobody learned anything about politics after the age of 21. Look at people who grew up in the Great Depression, and their understanding of politics is Hoover and FDR. Fifty years later, everything is Hoover and FDR.

And when was it that Norquist turned 21? Why, in 1977, of course.

Thank you, Grover, for being so intellectually stunted as to prove my point with your own.

And let's not forget to add: by his very words, Norquist is obsolete and should be put out to pasture.

[muntrv]

2. Conversely, Bill Clinton raised taxes on the top earners and ended the decade with budget surpluses.