We saw what clinton's way did. It took a growing economy and stagnated it to the point where both democrats and republicans decided to prop the economy on housing instead of going through a small recession.
I we can get the economy back to the growing economy clinton took over, we can try to tax higher again and gut the military even more. But if we cut waste and abuse everywhere, there won't be a need to tax higher.
Originally Posted by: PackFanWithTwins
Revisionist history again, eh?
Now there is plenty of blame to go around for the current state of our economic affairs and we're talking decades and decades back. Republicans and Democrats alike. And we, yes we, the American people will have to shoulder some of that blame as well.
But if you want to pick one person that is the most culpable for this huge economic mess, well that would be...one Ronald Wilson Reagan.
He did more economic short and long term damage to this country than anyone... and that is still being felt to this day.
"A lapse into fiscal indiscipline on a scale never before experienced in peacetime." --David Stockman (Reagan's budget director)
"The epitaph of the Reagan presidency will be: 'When Ronald Reagan became President, the United States was the largest creditor nation. When he left the presidency, we were the world's largest debtor nation.'" --Lester Thurow, MIT professor of economics
In his presidency, Reagan chose as his economic advisers a group that espoused a radical economic theory called "supply-side." The supply-siders told Reagan that if he gave tax cuts to the top brackets (the wealthiest individuals) the positive effects would "trickle down" to everyone else. Tax cuts, they argued, would produce so much growth in the economy that America could simply outgrow its deficits.
Reagan bought into supply-side theory, which is why in 1981 he predicted that there would be a "drastic reduction in the deficit."
However, Reagan soon discovered that his supply-side advisers were wrong. Tax cuts, instead of reducing the deficit, caused the deficit to balloon.
And we won't even get into the scandals that rocked Reagan's presidency....or the huge, and I mean huge Savings and Loan debacle of the mid 1980's.
Federal deficits would continue unabated until the presidency of Bill Clinton when fiscal responsibility would finally be restored.
President Clinton achieved a balanced budget (and even record surpluses) in large measure by restoring higher taxes on the wealthy.
Now enter one George W. Bush....
"America has a strong economy and a surplus.... Now is the time to reform the tax code and share some of the surplus with the people who pay the bills."--George W. Bush, nomination acceptance speech, 3 August 2000
After the election of 2000, Bush and a Republican-led Congress reduced income taxes, with the majority of the tax cuts going to America's wealthiest individuals. With the introduction of Bush's tax cuts, the budget surplus immediately disappeared and deficits resumed. By the end of Bush's eight-year term, the national debt stood at $10 trillion -- double its level when Bush assumed office.