I sparked a good discussion re debt and "trickle down" with earlier comments, but I actually had my definitions wrong. What I was referring to was the notion that you created less debt by lowering taxes because the economic stimulation was great enough that it created more revenue. That is actually referred to as "voodoo economics" and that discussion is ongoing below.
"Trickle down" is the idea that if you cut taxes at the top of the income brackets it stimulates the economy to the point that everybody benefits. Sowell didn't like the term, and I am fine with renaming it, it tends to be used as a pejorative, but I think whatever you want to call it, it has been a GOP concept and deserves scrutiny and by me criticism.
If you look at the increases in median income by income quintile from WW2 to present, you see a very notable pattern where from WW2 to about 1980 all incomes rose at about the same rate. The rich got richer and the middle and poor got richer. This was the great post war growth of the middle class.
From 1980 on the growth in income by quintile diverged sharply and although all quintiles rose the increased revenue was greatly concentrated on the top quintile. In a Dispatch analysis with Kevin W he pointed to the fact that, well the median increased so why complain that the rich did so much better.
My point is that per capita income has always increased since the industrial revolution because man invents things, productivity goes up. The poorest people today have more than a well to do person in the 1700s. Yet, if our total income increases by X Trillion, and the lower four quintiles, the 80% get only 10% of those productivity driven gains and the rest goes to the top quintile (just a hypothetical) I dont think this is good for the country. We do better when we are all gaining at similar rates. It has been shown eg that crime is more a function of inequality than poverty and Barry Latzer, the conservative criminologist, pointed out that the notion that people stole because they were poor was false and that the depression had low criminality, despite Bonnie and Clyde. But crime does correlate with inequality.
A society loses its cohesiveness when the prosperity diverges enormously and the US is now in its second gilded age.
We can scrap the term trickle down, I oppose language used by one side of the politics and not a fan of leftspeak, but I do think that the idea that we all share equally in our increased prosperity is a good one. Conservatives tend to write it off as class envy. I am not a fan of demonizing the rich a la Sanders, homo sapien likes to collect things regardless of class, but as a utilitarian I dont see an advantage and preference for increasing the wealth of average folks more than those who have more money than they could ever spend in 10,000 lifetimes. It is not a class warfare view, but a practical one.
As a conservative Dem looking for common ground with traditional conservatives, like Jay, in this era of populist craziness on the right and left, I think it would help conservatives to have at least a little of the modern liberal philosophy of caring for the prosperity of the average and worrying about the concentration of wealth at the top. As measured by Gini the US has become much more unequal ( also less mobility, another topic). I find those trends worrisome.
Great column as usual Jay. Methinks your Detroit Lions along with my Green Bay Packers could use some prayer this year as those Chicago Bears are looking pretty good so far. But definitely pray for America.
I hope you will write about George W. First president I was old enough to vote for and a political “first love”. Would be fantastic to hear what you think!
Jay, I am (was?) the kind of liberal who thought, at the time, that Dubya was going to be the end of the world. I am still skeptical about the wisdom of Americans
selecting him as POTUS (twice!). But good Lord, what a difference 20 years makes. If he were POTUS today, I would sleep like a baby tonight. If nothing else, PEPFAR has saved tens of millions of lives, and I hope he is justly proud, or at least gratified, to have made such a profound positive contribution to the world.
Whatever kind of liberal I am these days, I have always been a fiscal conservative, and both parties have contributed to a runaway train that is headed for a crash. I wish I saw anyone on either side of the aisle whose hair seems to be on fire about it.
It is raining in Bayfield, Ontario, we lost our pitcher to the Dodgers, but we will make do somehow.
Canada is a good example of a Country that has lost its most important fiscal guardrails, and forgotten economic lessons learned the hard way.
We now describe ourselves as a middle power, but that is being kind. We are a mediocrity with no clear grounding; a floating Laurentian pipedream, knocking on wood and hoping for the best.
We last balanced a budget in 2015 under Stephen Harper and the Conservatives.
Our experience should serve as a warning to Americans about the results of public profligacy.
Trickle-down economics is a pejorative used to criticise “Supply Side” or “Production” economics.
Robert Mundell, Edward C. Prescott, and Robert Lucas Jr. each won Nobel Prizes for their respective work in this, and ancillary, fields. It postulates that producers create both wealth and the purchasing power to consume that production. Producers drive economic outcomes.
Supply -Side should have been the final nail in the coffin of the Keynesian model.
So, we live still with the notion-the myth?- that government spending will drive accelerated demand and even provide a bonus with the “multiplier effect”.
1. On cutting it fine with milestones, my dad and I have been joking about waiting for the first left-handed paraplegic woman with Crohn's to climb Mount Everest for years. It was ever so, or at least for a very long time.
2. On liking characters to like novels: hmm, I don't care for Emma (from Jane Austen's book of the same name), and it's certainly not my favorite of Austen's books. But then, one of my favorite novels is Crime and Punishment and I wouldn't call Raskolnikov a likeable character.
3. Harvey Sachs is a lovely man who once accidentally got me in hot water with the president of a certain conservatory in Philadelphia when I worked there. Utterly and completely not his fault and he probably doesn't even know what happened or remember who I am. Excellent writer, too.
I was so spellbound by Crime and Punishment - so swept up into the mind of Raskolnikov -that every other novel I picked up for some time afterward seemed dull.
Many years later I read "Under Western Eyes," and when I mentioned that I enjoyed it to a neighbor who's a retired English professor, he said "Ah, Conrad doing his best imitation of Dostoevsky" - and I thought "Oh, that explains it."
First of all....that G always works !! That 7:45 is probably because it's an IMAX theater and Sonny Bunch says that is how more people can access them .
In regard to the U.S. debt, I know my household economy could not sustain that kind of spending for long.
If you write a biography of George W. Bush, I'll buy it. I think he is very unfairly rated. I disagreed with some of his decisions, but he told the American people what he was going to do and then did his best to do it. I think he may have overestimated the desire for democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan. I thought he could have done a better job of defending his policies, but he understood the value of alliances. His conduct in retirement has been exemplary.
Let this conservative Dem give you a different take on debt and so called 'trickle down'.
I am with you a 100% on debt and believe it is a moral failing to buy things on credit. It is both a government failing and a public failing, as personal debt is likely just as bad. America as a country has a very low savings rate. I am with my grandmother and Ben Franklin on that.
But as wacky as the lefts Modern Monetary Theory which I refer to as 'Money Grows on Trees' Theory is the right theory that if you just cut taxes it will boost the economy and you will reduce debt. Call it Trickle Down or Beef Stroganoff, whatever, it is as bad as MMT.
Of the presidents since FDR under whose tenure did the US see the greatest percentage increase in debt? Answer- Ronald Reagan. Least- Bill Clinton. And remarkably they tend to stack up in a partisan fashion. If you look at these numbers, doubling the percentage for the one term presidents the greatest percentage increase in debt from most to least goes- Reagan, Trump 1, HW Bush, W Bush, Obama, Nixon, Biden, Carter, Clinton, LBJ, Eisenhower, JFK, Truman. https://www.investopedia.com/us-debt-by-president-dollar-and-percentage-7371225
The public perception is that the Dems as the profligate spenders are the debt producers, and sometimes they are. But as debt is revenue minus spending, if you cut revenue it is the same as increasing spending, and that is where "trickle down" came from. Kevin Williamson argued with me that well Reagan had a Dem Congress, some truth there, but his budgets were passed by Republicans and the now extinct species of conservative Dems and he has a veto which btw Clinton threatened to insist on a more balanced budget.. The focus of the GOP has always been cutting taxes regardless of debt
Anyway not to get into the endless partisan warfare. My belief is that any spending bill should have the necessary revenue to implement it as a requirement- sometimes referred to as pay-go. And the corollary to rein in the tax cutters, is that every tax cut must be accompanied by equal spending reductions . Deficits should be reserved for times of war and recession, and prosperous times should save with a rainy day fund. I can go with HW and Obama running some deficits in 2008-10 but eg Trump's deficits during the prosperous pre Covid years was unconscionable and were absolutely about cutting taxes, the majority on the wealthy. You don't want to call it trickle down, fine, suggest something else, but it is a false theory. Cutting taxes without equal spending reduction, creates debt.
As someone else mentioned, I think both of those presidents benefited (or suffered in Reagan's case) from the policies of their predecessors. It's also important to remember that presidents hold much less power over taxes and spending than congress and bill Clinton was particularly lucky to have Newt Gingrich running things behind the scenes while bill was getting all the credit. It's also worth remembering that Reagan was during the height of the cold War and that money helped to end it. Clinton no longer had to worry about massive military spending.
No budget can pass without a presidential signature and there was no vetoproof Dem majority in the House, and the Rs held the Senate during Reagan's term. The bill that passed Kemp-Roth when Reagan came in and reshaped tax policy, was sponsored by two Republicans and passed by getting conservative Southern Democratic support. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Recovery_Tax_Act_of_1981
Also if we look at periods where one party had a trifecta- executive, House, Senate, eg Clinton in 93-95 and GWB in 2003-2007 you will note that Clinton did run more debt than when he had Gingrich applying the brakes, but still his deficits in his trifecta years were lower than Reagans and also lower than GWBs when he had the Trifecta for four full years, granted he had a war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget There are always qualifiers but the correlation is very strong that Rs run more debt mostly as a function of reducing taxes. We saw another spike in debt with Trump 1 when he had a trifecta and a strong economy, no war in 2017-2019. Dems are not immune and Biden ran huge debt though you could argue that was Covid related.
With respect to President Reagan and President Clinton, I would argue- respectfully and without malice, that President Clinton enjoyed the results of President Reagan’s economic policies.
Economics doesn’t revolve around the US electoral cycle; that is not a partisan comment, nor intended to offend.
Certainly no offense. I was not addressing economies, and why one is up and one is down and what that might be attributable to would seem impossible.
My point was about debt and the willingness to accept it and Reagan accrued more of it than anybody. The problem on the R side is their eagerness to cut taxes vs the inability to find the spending cuts to balance it.
Wolfy, it is not a belief that cutting taxes will stimulate the economy, but a fact that when government legislators take less money from creators…creators will create more of what they have been creating, with their own money, thank you very much…And Speaking of F.D.R….the more his administration and Congress took liberties with other people’s monies, the longer the aptly known “Depression” lasted. But, like with Germany, America became a one party state in the thirties, so everything the people knew about their government was wrong. But, not to go on a rant here, as my old man lay in Arlington since 1997, not 1945, I can and will speak for him his former Commander and Chief was one of the most over rated human beings to ever live…who, like Churchill, disgracefully wined and dined with a mass murderer to win a hot war…only to condemn hundreds of millions of people to live in the world’s biggest dictatorship…until this very day. God help U.S. We the Living in Kakistocracy.
Injecting money into the economy whether by cutting taxes or giving out benefits, helps the economy, but we are not talking about stimulating the economy, we are talking about debt, and, no, you cant cut taxes and gain more through increased economics than you lose in simply not raising the money you need. Nor is it ethical. If all those GOP presidents, could have balanced their budgets by spending cuts or whatever, fine, but as I, in detail, showed you, they didn't. They increased debt, Reagan being the most responsible of any president since FDR for increasing debt.
I made no mention of FDR, other than a demarcation for modern presidents, so fail to see the relevance of FDR in this discussion. Because I oppose the GOP reducing revenue below that necessary to balance the budget doesn't make me a spokesman for FDR or any other policy of the left. Like many people in discussions, the assumption that criticizing one side of the political spectrum implies I support anything on the other side is wrong, and I dont. I just think you have to pay your bills. For an individual that means making a paycheck, and for a government, taxes.
I appreciate your time and completely agree with your political views about debt. There is no such thing as “trickle down economics”, just as “supply side economics “ is another complete misnomer…like saying “by cutting taxes” is “injecting money into the economy”…As a “conservative”, “Republican” here would politely inform you Wolfy, it is not the fing governments money in the first place and our government better have a damn good reason for taxing it’s citizen[s], for anything, in the first place…like, for defense…Leave aside, to quip, about 99% of the Democratic Party’s platform is unconstitutional and its big government programs can only be paid for by racking up….you guessed it, DEBT!
You are of course right Reagan administration’s running up the national debt to pay for [a defense department to be amply prepared for war with a very real evil empire] all manner of things the government should not be in the business of doing in the first place (you did say you are “conservative”) and applauding Clinton for seeing the forest through the trees and going along to get along with a Republican Congress…but it most definitely is a “false theory” to suggest that cutting taxes creates debt if the conservative in you would just suggest big government should not be in big business in the first place…just as it is a false analogy to suggest MMT and supply sider’s just believe cutting taxes will boost the economy…No, the latter proponents already know in their hearts and minds that creators create more for our nation’s economy than politicians and government bureaucrats do, because everything the latter groups members make and do is by taking other people’s money in the first place…or, like politicians being in the members only group of parasites that can rack up debt without habit to ever pay for it out of their own pockets, and then blame the taxpayer for not coughing up more…I mean “liberal” Democrats will just blame the rich creators for not paying more in taxes for their running up our nations debt for a most liberal Democratic Party platform. And to the extent that Republican politicians go along to get along is a rant for another day, it is just plain and simply wrong to believe that cutting taxes creates debt, but it sure as hell does leave more money in the hands of creators…hence the supply siders innate belief it will help stimulate the economy…to this here Village Idiwitt one might say “duh”. Anywho, I appreciate your time as one might quip “I prefer clarity to agreement” as I gotta run on…as I am want to do on Substack🍺✌️
Re spending is unconstitutional: I am not a constitutional scholar, and our system relies on the courts to determine those things, and so if the courts have not ruled against them I might assume they are Constitutional. Maybe when the Libertarians gain the presidency for some 20 years and reshape SCOTUS they will go back and overturn all those decisions made since TR ushered in the progressive agenda. I wouldn't hold my breath. What Libertarians fail to see, is that people like these things, it helps them to enjoy their lives, and we are an electoral democracy. You want to get rid of Social Security, National Parks, food stamps, fine, convince your neighbor. We seem to have a free and prosperous country despite the Libertarians always obsessing about how the government is making everybody miserable.
As to what makes debt, of course it is revenue (taxes) minus spending. That is simple math. It isnt just the big spenders. European countries with much less debt and huge sovereign wealth funds like Norway, also manage to have heavy social spending, but high taxes. That is a choice up to the citizens. I am not a kitchen sink liberal like Mr. and Ms. Sanders and Warren, but eg I do believe that a wealthy country can be compassionate enough to make sure everybody can afford healthcare.
Whether you favor balancing the budget with less spending or more taxes is something we can argue about, but my point is that the bottom line is we should balance it, and it is the responsibility of the spenders to tax enough to support that or the responsibility of the tax cutters to reduce spending. I assume you want to cut taxes and spending, but in a democracy you have to win public opinion, and there is no great attraction for eg cutting Social Security or MCR the two largest items in the budget, so just cutting taxes without the political ability to cut spending means debt.
Thanks for your comment on my comments Wolfy. There is just to much to respond to, but your inference that I lean Libertarian is to be applauded, though it is with a small “l” being that I am a registered Republican
Speaking of fallacies, Logic 101, aka PHI 101 should inform you that any appeal to “the people “ is by definition illogical as it pertains to might makes right. And one need not be a constitutional scholar to know that most of what goes on in Washington has no merit in The Framers intent, let alone saying that politicians getting away with spending other people’s money’s because it is popular with their base makes it right. But speaking of beliefs. if the current iteration of the Democratic Party where to turn into Libertarians over the course of the next 20 years, or even better, right now, and immediately super down size the role of the federal government and eliminate most tax transfers from creatures to parasites in D.C….Your world would be a much richer, freer place because my neighbors are producers, unlike the scum of the earth taxers in D.C. that keep promising more while they blame the rich for all the government’s lack of resources…Don’t believe me, read Elizabeth Warren.
Referring to people as "scum of the earth" is a bit much on the hyperbole. Overstatement cheapens an argument. You disagree with those folks, fine,. I do favor modest social welfare, universal health, environmental protections, national parks, the Peterson Fence of the prosperous democracies. We have a nice country even if it is being challenged.
If you think the jurisprudence of the last 100 years is all wrong, then convince your neighbors of that and they can pass amendments banning all social welfare. That is how our Constitution works. And it works remarkably well, and we are quite fortunate.
"I expect more from the Guardian and its editors. They may be on the left, but they are serious, and not stupid."
You can say that, and yet, they published a book review that said Mario Vargas Llosa went “from the hard left to the hard right.”
If they are serious, and they are not stupid, why did they choose to do this? I would suggest it's because they are hardcore ideologues. (I will not identify their locked-in ideology as either "left" or "right," because those terms contain no content.)
This being the case, why would one "expect more" from them than that what they publish would serve their ideology? Many hardcore ideologues are both serious and intelligent. That's why they are influential.
Sowell was right about "trickle-down theory," but I'd still take Talarico over Paxton.
I sparked a good discussion re debt and "trickle down" with earlier comments, but I actually had my definitions wrong. What I was referring to was the notion that you created less debt by lowering taxes because the economic stimulation was great enough that it created more revenue. That is actually referred to as "voodoo economics" and that discussion is ongoing below.
"Trickle down" is the idea that if you cut taxes at the top of the income brackets it stimulates the economy to the point that everybody benefits. Sowell didn't like the term, and I am fine with renaming it, it tends to be used as a pejorative, but I think whatever you want to call it, it has been a GOP concept and deserves scrutiny and by me criticism.
If you look at the increases in median income by income quintile from WW2 to present, you see a very notable pattern where from WW2 to about 1980 all incomes rose at about the same rate. The rich got richer and the middle and poor got richer. This was the great post war growth of the middle class.
From 1980 on the growth in income by quintile diverged sharply and although all quintiles rose the increased revenue was greatly concentrated on the top quintile. In a Dispatch analysis with Kevin W he pointed to the fact that, well the median increased so why complain that the rich did so much better.
My point is that per capita income has always increased since the industrial revolution because man invents things, productivity goes up. The poorest people today have more than a well to do person in the 1700s. Yet, if our total income increases by X Trillion, and the lower four quintiles, the 80% get only 10% of those productivity driven gains and the rest goes to the top quintile (just a hypothetical) I dont think this is good for the country. We do better when we are all gaining at similar rates. It has been shown eg that crime is more a function of inequality than poverty and Barry Latzer, the conservative criminologist, pointed out that the notion that people stole because they were poor was false and that the depression had low criminality, despite Bonnie and Clyde. But crime does correlate with inequality.
A society loses its cohesiveness when the prosperity diverges enormously and the US is now in its second gilded age.
We can scrap the term trickle down, I oppose language used by one side of the politics and not a fan of leftspeak, but I do think that the idea that we all share equally in our increased prosperity is a good one. Conservatives tend to write it off as class envy. I am not a fan of demonizing the rich a la Sanders, homo sapien likes to collect things regardless of class, but as a utilitarian I dont see an advantage and preference for increasing the wealth of average folks more than those who have more money than they could ever spend in 10,000 lifetimes. It is not a class warfare view, but a practical one.
As a conservative Dem looking for common ground with traditional conservatives, like Jay, in this era of populist craziness on the right and left, I think it would help conservatives to have at least a little of the modern liberal philosophy of caring for the prosperity of the average and worrying about the concentration of wealth at the top. As measured by Gini the US has become much more unequal ( also less mobility, another topic). I find those trends worrisome.
Great column as usual Jay. Methinks your Detroit Lions along with my Green Bay Packers could use some prayer this year as those Chicago Bears are looking pretty good so far. But definitely pray for America.
!! Thx, Steve.
I hope you will write about George W. First president I was old enough to vote for and a political “first love”. Would be fantastic to hear what you think!
Thank you, JKT.
Jay, I am (was?) the kind of liberal who thought, at the time, that Dubya was going to be the end of the world. I am still skeptical about the wisdom of Americans
selecting him as POTUS (twice!). But good Lord, what a difference 20 years makes. If he were POTUS today, I would sleep like a baby tonight. If nothing else, PEPFAR has saved tens of millions of lives, and I hope he is justly proud, or at least gratified, to have made such a profound positive contribution to the world.
Whatever kind of liberal I am these days, I have always been a fiscal conservative, and both parties have contributed to a runaway train that is headed for a crash. I wish I saw anyone on either side of the aisle whose hair seems to be on fire about it.
What a delightful read!!
It is raining in Bayfield, Ontario, we lost our pitcher to the Dodgers, but we will make do somehow.
Canada is a good example of a Country that has lost its most important fiscal guardrails, and forgotten economic lessons learned the hard way.
We now describe ourselves as a middle power, but that is being kind. We are a mediocrity with no clear grounding; a floating Laurentian pipedream, knocking on wood and hoping for the best.
We last balanced a budget in 2015 under Stephen Harper and the Conservatives.
Our experience should serve as a warning to Americans about the results of public profligacy.
Trickle-down economics is a pejorative used to criticise “Supply Side” or “Production” economics.
Robert Mundell, Edward C. Prescott, and Robert Lucas Jr. each won Nobel Prizes for their respective work in this, and ancillary, fields. It postulates that producers create both wealth and the purchasing power to consume that production. Producers drive economic outcomes.
Supply -Side should have been the final nail in the coffin of the Keynesian model.
So, we live still with the notion-the myth?- that government spending will drive accelerated demand and even provide a bonus with the “multiplier effect”.
Pray for our respective Countries, indeed.
Thank you so much.
1. On cutting it fine with milestones, my dad and I have been joking about waiting for the first left-handed paraplegic woman with Crohn's to climb Mount Everest for years. It was ever so, or at least for a very long time.
2. On liking characters to like novels: hmm, I don't care for Emma (from Jane Austen's book of the same name), and it's certainly not my favorite of Austen's books. But then, one of my favorite novels is Crime and Punishment and I wouldn't call Raskolnikov a likeable character.
3. Harvey Sachs is a lovely man who once accidentally got me in hot water with the president of a certain conservatory in Philadelphia when I worked there. Utterly and completely not his fault and he probably doesn't even know what happened or remember who I am. Excellent writer, too.
I was so spellbound by Crime and Punishment - so swept up into the mind of Raskolnikov -that every other novel I picked up for some time afterward seemed dull.
Many years later I read "Under Western Eyes," and when I mentioned that I enjoyed it to a neighbor who's a retired English professor, he said "Ah, Conrad doing his best imitation of Dostoevsky" - and I thought "Oh, that explains it."
First of all....that G always works !! That 7:45 is probably because it's an IMAX theater and Sonny Bunch says that is how more people can access them .
In regard to the U.S. debt, I know my household economy could not sustain that kind of spending for long.
If you write a biography of George W. Bush, I'll buy it. I think he is very unfairly rated. I disagreed with some of his decisions, but he told the American people what he was going to do and then did his best to do it. I think he may have overestimated the desire for democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan. I thought he could have done a better job of defending his policies, but he understood the value of alliances. His conduct in retirement has been exemplary.
"Not famous but known" = notorious?
Waguespack! Haven’t thought about that name in years! “Thanks for the memories” as Jimmy Durante might croon.
Let this conservative Dem give you a different take on debt and so called 'trickle down'.
I am with you a 100% on debt and believe it is a moral failing to buy things on credit. It is both a government failing and a public failing, as personal debt is likely just as bad. America as a country has a very low savings rate. I am with my grandmother and Ben Franklin on that.
But as wacky as the lefts Modern Monetary Theory which I refer to as 'Money Grows on Trees' Theory is the right theory that if you just cut taxes it will boost the economy and you will reduce debt. Call it Trickle Down or Beef Stroganoff, whatever, it is as bad as MMT.
Of the presidents since FDR under whose tenure did the US see the greatest percentage increase in debt? Answer- Ronald Reagan. Least- Bill Clinton. And remarkably they tend to stack up in a partisan fashion. If you look at these numbers, doubling the percentage for the one term presidents the greatest percentage increase in debt from most to least goes- Reagan, Trump 1, HW Bush, W Bush, Obama, Nixon, Biden, Carter, Clinton, LBJ, Eisenhower, JFK, Truman. https://www.investopedia.com/us-debt-by-president-dollar-and-percentage-7371225
The public perception is that the Dems as the profligate spenders are the debt producers, and sometimes they are. But as debt is revenue minus spending, if you cut revenue it is the same as increasing spending, and that is where "trickle down" came from. Kevin Williamson argued with me that well Reagan had a Dem Congress, some truth there, but his budgets were passed by Republicans and the now extinct species of conservative Dems and he has a veto which btw Clinton threatened to insist on a more balanced budget.. The focus of the GOP has always been cutting taxes regardless of debt
Anyway not to get into the endless partisan warfare. My belief is that any spending bill should have the necessary revenue to implement it as a requirement- sometimes referred to as pay-go. And the corollary to rein in the tax cutters, is that every tax cut must be accompanied by equal spending reductions . Deficits should be reserved for times of war and recession, and prosperous times should save with a rainy day fund. I can go with HW and Obama running some deficits in 2008-10 but eg Trump's deficits during the prosperous pre Covid years was unconscionable and were absolutely about cutting taxes, the majority on the wealthy. You don't want to call it trickle down, fine, suggest something else, but it is a false theory. Cutting taxes without equal spending reduction, creates debt.
As someone else mentioned, I think both of those presidents benefited (or suffered in Reagan's case) from the policies of their predecessors. It's also important to remember that presidents hold much less power over taxes and spending than congress and bill Clinton was particularly lucky to have Newt Gingrich running things behind the scenes while bill was getting all the credit. It's also worth remembering that Reagan was during the height of the cold War and that money helped to end it. Clinton no longer had to worry about massive military spending.
No budget can pass without a presidential signature and there was no vetoproof Dem majority in the House, and the Rs held the Senate during Reagan's term. The bill that passed Kemp-Roth when Reagan came in and reshaped tax policy, was sponsored by two Republicans and passed by getting conservative Southern Democratic support. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Recovery_Tax_Act_of_1981
Also if we look at periods where one party had a trifecta- executive, House, Senate, eg Clinton in 93-95 and GWB in 2003-2007 you will note that Clinton did run more debt than when he had Gingrich applying the brakes, but still his deficits in his trifecta years were lower than Reagans and also lower than GWBs when he had the Trifecta for four full years, granted he had a war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget There are always qualifiers but the correlation is very strong that Rs run more debt mostly as a function of reducing taxes. We saw another spike in debt with Trump 1 when he had a trifecta and a strong economy, no war in 2017-2019. Dems are not immune and Biden ran huge debt though you could argue that was Covid related.
With respect to President Reagan and President Clinton, I would argue- respectfully and without malice, that President Clinton enjoyed the results of President Reagan’s economic policies.
Economics doesn’t revolve around the US electoral cycle; that is not a partisan comment, nor intended to offend.
Certainly no offense. I was not addressing economies, and why one is up and one is down and what that might be attributable to would seem impossible.
My point was about debt and the willingness to accept it and Reagan accrued more of it than anybody. The problem on the R side is their eagerness to cut taxes vs the inability to find the spending cuts to balance it.
Can’t argue with that.
Well stated, friend.
Wolfy, it is not a belief that cutting taxes will stimulate the economy, but a fact that when government legislators take less money from creators…creators will create more of what they have been creating, with their own money, thank you very much…And Speaking of F.D.R….the more his administration and Congress took liberties with other people’s monies, the longer the aptly known “Depression” lasted. But, like with Germany, America became a one party state in the thirties, so everything the people knew about their government was wrong. But, not to go on a rant here, as my old man lay in Arlington since 1997, not 1945, I can and will speak for him his former Commander and Chief was one of the most over rated human beings to ever live…who, like Churchill, disgracefully wined and dined with a mass murderer to win a hot war…only to condemn hundreds of millions of people to live in the world’s biggest dictatorship…until this very day. God help U.S. We the Living in Kakistocracy.
Injecting money into the economy whether by cutting taxes or giving out benefits, helps the economy, but we are not talking about stimulating the economy, we are talking about debt, and, no, you cant cut taxes and gain more through increased economics than you lose in simply not raising the money you need. Nor is it ethical. If all those GOP presidents, could have balanced their budgets by spending cuts or whatever, fine, but as I, in detail, showed you, they didn't. They increased debt, Reagan being the most responsible of any president since FDR for increasing debt.
I made no mention of FDR, other than a demarcation for modern presidents, so fail to see the relevance of FDR in this discussion. Because I oppose the GOP reducing revenue below that necessary to balance the budget doesn't make me a spokesman for FDR or any other policy of the left. Like many people in discussions, the assumption that criticizing one side of the political spectrum implies I support anything on the other side is wrong, and I dont. I just think you have to pay your bills. For an individual that means making a paycheck, and for a government, taxes.
I appreciate your time and completely agree with your political views about debt. There is no such thing as “trickle down economics”, just as “supply side economics “ is another complete misnomer…like saying “by cutting taxes” is “injecting money into the economy”…As a “conservative”, “Republican” here would politely inform you Wolfy, it is not the fing governments money in the first place and our government better have a damn good reason for taxing it’s citizen[s], for anything, in the first place…like, for defense…Leave aside, to quip, about 99% of the Democratic Party’s platform is unconstitutional and its big government programs can only be paid for by racking up….you guessed it, DEBT!
You are of course right Reagan administration’s running up the national debt to pay for [a defense department to be amply prepared for war with a very real evil empire] all manner of things the government should not be in the business of doing in the first place (you did say you are “conservative”) and applauding Clinton for seeing the forest through the trees and going along to get along with a Republican Congress…but it most definitely is a “false theory” to suggest that cutting taxes creates debt if the conservative in you would just suggest big government should not be in big business in the first place…just as it is a false analogy to suggest MMT and supply sider’s just believe cutting taxes will boost the economy…No, the latter proponents already know in their hearts and minds that creators create more for our nation’s economy than politicians and government bureaucrats do, because everything the latter groups members make and do is by taking other people’s money in the first place…or, like politicians being in the members only group of parasites that can rack up debt without habit to ever pay for it out of their own pockets, and then blame the taxpayer for not coughing up more…I mean “liberal” Democrats will just blame the rich creators for not paying more in taxes for their running up our nations debt for a most liberal Democratic Party platform. And to the extent that Republican politicians go along to get along is a rant for another day, it is just plain and simply wrong to believe that cutting taxes creates debt, but it sure as hell does leave more money in the hands of creators…hence the supply siders innate belief it will help stimulate the economy…to this here Village Idiwitt one might say “duh”. Anywho, I appreciate your time as one might quip “I prefer clarity to agreement” as I gotta run on…as I am want to do on Substack🍺✌️
Let me point out a few fallacies.
Re spending is unconstitutional: I am not a constitutional scholar, and our system relies on the courts to determine those things, and so if the courts have not ruled against them I might assume they are Constitutional. Maybe when the Libertarians gain the presidency for some 20 years and reshape SCOTUS they will go back and overturn all those decisions made since TR ushered in the progressive agenda. I wouldn't hold my breath. What Libertarians fail to see, is that people like these things, it helps them to enjoy their lives, and we are an electoral democracy. You want to get rid of Social Security, National Parks, food stamps, fine, convince your neighbor. We seem to have a free and prosperous country despite the Libertarians always obsessing about how the government is making everybody miserable.
As to what makes debt, of course it is revenue (taxes) minus spending. That is simple math. It isnt just the big spenders. European countries with much less debt and huge sovereign wealth funds like Norway, also manage to have heavy social spending, but high taxes. That is a choice up to the citizens. I am not a kitchen sink liberal like Mr. and Ms. Sanders and Warren, but eg I do believe that a wealthy country can be compassionate enough to make sure everybody can afford healthcare.
Whether you favor balancing the budget with less spending or more taxes is something we can argue about, but my point is that the bottom line is we should balance it, and it is the responsibility of the spenders to tax enough to support that or the responsibility of the tax cutters to reduce spending. I assume you want to cut taxes and spending, but in a democracy you have to win public opinion, and there is no great attraction for eg cutting Social Security or MCR the two largest items in the budget, so just cutting taxes without the political ability to cut spending means debt.
Thanks for your comment on my comments Wolfy. There is just to much to respond to, but your inference that I lean Libertarian is to be applauded, though it is with a small “l” being that I am a registered Republican
Speaking of fallacies, Logic 101, aka PHI 101 should inform you that any appeal to “the people “ is by definition illogical as it pertains to might makes right. And one need not be a constitutional scholar to know that most of what goes on in Washington has no merit in The Framers intent, let alone saying that politicians getting away with spending other people’s money’s because it is popular with their base makes it right. But speaking of beliefs. if the current iteration of the Democratic Party where to turn into Libertarians over the course of the next 20 years, or even better, right now, and immediately super down size the role of the federal government and eliminate most tax transfers from creatures to parasites in D.C….Your world would be a much richer, freer place because my neighbors are producers, unlike the scum of the earth taxers in D.C. that keep promising more while they blame the rich for all the government’s lack of resources…Don’t believe me, read Elizabeth Warren.
Referring to people as "scum of the earth" is a bit much on the hyperbole. Overstatement cheapens an argument. You disagree with those folks, fine,. I do favor modest social welfare, universal health, environmental protections, national parks, the Peterson Fence of the prosperous democracies. We have a nice country even if it is being challenged.
If you think the jurisprudence of the last 100 years is all wrong, then convince your neighbors of that and they can pass amendments banning all social welfare. That is how our Constitution works. And it works remarkably well, and we are quite fortunate.
“Do you have to like the character, or characters, in order to like the novel, or story?”
I do. So while I'm glad to have read your two-parter on Toscanini, it's not by much, and I definitely won't read the biography.
Kelly Green (I knew a girl named Kelly Green in 6th grade) is exactly:
HEX Code: #4CBB17
RGB Values: Red 76, Green 187, Blue 23 (or 29.8% red, 73.3% green, 9% blue)
CMYK Values: Cyan 59%, Magenta 0%, Yellow 88%, Black 27%
Brain teaser for the day!?
Mr. Nordlinger wrote, "I’m not exactly sure what kelly green is."
"I expect more from the Guardian and its editors. They may be on the left, but they are serious, and not stupid."
You can say that, and yet, they published a book review that said Mario Vargas Llosa went “from the hard left to the hard right.”
If they are serious, and they are not stupid, why did they choose to do this? I would suggest it's because they are hardcore ideologues. (I will not identify their locked-in ideology as either "left" or "right," because those terms contain no content.)
This being the case, why would one "expect more" from them than that what they publish would serve their ideology? Many hardcore ideologues are both serious and intelligent. That's why they are influential.
Good points all.
Thank you.