Reply #8: Reagan gets a lot of credit for stuff he never did.

[seasat]

Carter and Volcker did more to change our economy than Reagan/Greenspan some for better and some for worse. The real blame for the 81/82 recession lies with the monetary policies under Nixon where they thought that low prime rates would keep the good times a-rollin'. Amazing how Repub history repeats itself.

Reagan also raised taxes at least as much if not more than he cut them. It appeared early in his term that the magic revenue fairy was not going to sprinkle magic dust on his tax cuts resulting in higher government revenues. The Reaganites panicked and started raising taxes. They raised corporate taxes by cutting loopholes (higher levels than under Clinton and both Bushes). They had the largest tax increase on the most number of working people when they raised SS taxes to cover the short fall in social security. They raised all sorts of government user fees in stealth tax increases. The capital gains tax was initially cut then allowed to increase under Reagan. Reagan even cut corporate subsidies such as those for small refineries (one of the real reasons refinery capacity diminished...not environmental regulations). Yet, despite the higher effective corporate tax rates and increases in capital gains taxes, the economy did okay, disproving the Repub back-of-the-napkin theory.

Reagan even gets credit for deregulation but most of that started under Carter. Carter pushed through deregulation of transportation, energy, and communications. IMHO, Carter went too far with some of his deregulation. Carter's deregulation push was one of the issues that caused him to lose support from the Democratic congress.

Pretty much Reagan showed up and repeated his lines but in reality didn't accomplish much except for gutting environmental regulations, padding the pockets of defense contractors, creating chaos in other countries, and ballooning budget deficits.