The Bottom Line

We’re still hearing about the “Reagan miracle.” Carefully isolated statistics gleaned from the recovery period of an economic cycle are cited as proof. Since we expect our government to be accountable, it’s time that we acknowledged the bottom line.

President Reagan’s Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 cut taxes dramatically. We recovered from a recession, but our nation’s debt tripled during his administration.  Republican administrations amassed $9 trillion in debt, the lion’s share of our nation’s current debt.

The “job creators” haven’t delivered yet, either. Reagan ranked fourth in job creation behind Democrats Johnson, Carter, and Clinton. After giving us our lowest tax rates in eighty years, Bush ranked last, turning in the most abysmal record of job creation since the Great Depression.

Coincidentally, Republican administrations and lax regulation ushered in both the Great Depression and our Great Recession. In any case, it’s clear that our wealthiest citizens had the advantage during three decades of predominantly Republican leadership. Our census indicates that half of us now either qualify as low income or live in poverty.

We have an election coming up. Hiring in the private sector is based upon ability and past performance.

Democrats controlled both houses of Congress for three decades following WWII. They paid our debt down and invested in our infrastructure, both proven business practices. We had higher growth rates and a thriving middle class.

Our best overall economic performance and our only balanced budget during the past three decades occurred during Democrat Bill Clinton’s administration. He raised taxes, created the most new jobs of any recent president, and handed a surplus to George W. Bush.

As for the bottom line, our nation’s debt now tops $15 trillion.

The primary cause of $4 trillion in debt amassed since President Obama came into office is revenue loss caused by the Great Recession. Economists agree that the $8 billion stimulus, less than one quarter of that amount, kept us from sinking into a Depression.

In any case, President Obama is faring better two years after the stimulus than Reagan did two years after his tax cuts, quite a feat considering the magnitude of the disaster Obama was handed. Reagan had a 35% approval rating and 10% unemployment in 1983.

In the real world, leadership implies responsibility.

While tax cuts are seductive, it’s easy to see they haven’t been a cure-all. We have lower growth rates, a crumbling infrastructure, and an unsustainable debt.

If you’re still unsure that Republican leadership had anything to do with our current state of affairs, consider the results of these efforts: They pledged loyalty to a lobbyist, expanded the influence of corporations by granting them personhood, and wrote and passed a law exempting assorted Wall Street trades from scrutiny and freeing banks from the requirement of having assets to cover their liabilities.

While no administration achieves perfection, many employed solutions that allowed our nation to prosper and fulfilled our Constitutional mandate to promote the general welfare. And they had a healthy bottom line.