Friday, October 24, 2008

The End of the 1980's?

Since the 1980's began when video killed the radio star, perhaps that is the wrong medium to declare their end, which I did in a commentary for the local NPR station:
Ronald Reagan was fond of an aphorism attributed to Thomas Jefferson: the government which governs least, governs best. During the debate over the financial rescue, one Republican Congressman described the legislation as a coffin on top of Ronald Reagan's coffin. That the proposal he was criticizing came from a Republican President and his Wall Street treasury secretary shows how much things have changed.Regulation is not the only area of economic policy where the 1980's mentality is coming to an end. The so-called supply side economics that motivated the tax cuts under Reagan and George W. Bush has also been discredited by events...

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