Reply #4: A *lot* of these guys are Reagan-era retreads though

[starroute]

Not so much the Neocons, but a lot of the people who are in the Bush administration now were in the Reagan administration then. There are a bunch more like Abramoff, Norquist, and Reed who were eager young New Rightsters during the Reagan years. And the whole cut-taxes-for-the-rich-and-screw-the-poor philosophy comes right out of Reaganism.

So yeah, I'd say it's the same phenomenon, but in a kind of reductio ad absurdum.