Reaganomics verses Supply Side Economics.

there is a huge difference between supply side economics and whatever it was that Reagan did. Had Reagan cut taxes on the wealthy, reduced government spending to sub deficit levels, ensured that established companies were not legally propped up by legislation that discouraged competition and initiated a mostly hands off policy towards business regulation, (monitoring, investigating and prosecuting fraud, human exploitation, insider dealing and anti-trust shenanigans being the exceptions), it would have been interesting indeed to see where we would be right now. The problem is that he cut taxes on the rich and then did the exact opposite on everything else. To add insult to that offense, he also hijacked the ‘Supply Side Economics’ label and applied it to that bastard step child that he created.

Now it is a question of semantics. This irrational push from the right towards the outright political canonization of Ronald Reagan has only allowed that mislabeled, whatever of a policy he created to stick as supply side economics. Whenever there is any attempt to have a rational conversation about SSE, you are dealing with 2 fundamentally different perceptions. Are you talking about SSE in the ideal sense that has in practice, never been applied in today’s modern world or are you talking SSE in the context of what RR recklessly unleashed upon this society? Unfortunately, when you try to discuss SSE with one of the apparent legions of the Reagan corpse riders, you will get little to no rational discourse from them because any questioning of SSE is perceived as an attack on the very legacy of RR.

SSE – Little or no taxes on business. Little to no interference by the government except as listed above. In theory, that would allow for companies to honestly compete against each other. Those that were managed strategically would grow, create more jobs, those newly employed people would spend their money by pumping it back into that capitalistic engine, and up, up, up and away we would go. To me, the realistic side of me is leery of that because it does not place a check on greed and the devastating consequences that greed can inflict upon a society. Industrialized Briton and America way back when to me are good examples of the dangers of that. Their legal structure at the time was not mature enough to keep up with that industrialization. There was a lot of collateral damage from that and the working class overall was adversely exploited due to that.

Reaganonomics – Cut taxes. Rationalize/market those tax cuts and corresponding INCREASE in deficit spending by saying that as SSE promises to pump more money into the economy, in addition to creating more jobs, it will also put more money back into government coffers to pay down that deficit spending. As a way to appease the very Wall Street overlords who already should have been sated enough, cozy up to them. Allow them to expand a budding lobbying industry in order to legally facilitate and control the transfer money from the public sector to the legislative sector under the guise of “campaign contributions.” The best way to have that money continue to flow? Glad you asked. Write into law legislation favorable to them even if by doing that, it legally mitigates the little things like an honest and pesky approach to things like honest competition and reasonable labor laws.

I personally think the most understated but most remarkable thing the Republican Party has been able to do these past 30 years has been to cobble enough of a political coalition and keep it together for as long as they have for them to have remained in power and still be relevant in today’s world. Divide and conquer. They took hot button issues that mean a tremendous amount to many people on an emotional level, yet are fundamental personal choice issues that an open and free government has no business being on either side of, figured out which side would give them the most popular support and embraced those issues as their own.

Think about it. If a political party told you they were going to give favorable tax consideration to the very rich. They were going to stiff your kids with an oppressive debt. They were going to create a system where some of that money was going to be funneled back to them so they could keep on spreading their message in order to keep their political jobs. They were also going to foster a non competitive market with adverse conditions towards any new competition and as a consequence, have it so tilted towards the status quo that things like boom and bust cycles, increasing demands on individual productivity, recessions and market corrections would pretty much ensure that the purchasing power of the middle class and the relative number of available jobs to them would at best stay flat, they would be lucky to be pulling Green Party numbers at the polls right now.

The genius of the Republican Party was that they had the foresight to exploit those political hot button emotional issues in order to stay in power. “Hate flag burners? Guess what, so do we. Come join us. Does abortion make you want to cry inside at just the thought of it? Me too sweetie, me too. Come join us and we will fight it together. Hey Jethro, did you know those filthy hippies want to take away your guns? That’s fucked up! Come join us and you can keep them. What? Little Bubba can’t say one little prayer in school? WTF! Join us and we will fight that.” And on and on. The very people that they throw to the wolves on a continuing basis under the banner of "Reaganonimics" to the very corrupt market that they encouraged through Reganomics on an almost cyclical basis are the very ones who think that the Republican Party is all that stands between them and whatever. Masterful indeed!

Bonus irony: Not one of those issues has been resolved favorably to the Republican side! That leads me to believe that the last thing the Republican Party would ever want is for all guns and school prayer to be legal and flag burning and abortion to be outlawed. Think about that for a minute. In the past 30 years, not one of their major hot button mass issues has been resolved? Has anyone asked why that is? IMO, if that were to happen, people then might start questioning, “Hey, wait a minute, where did all of our money/jobs/productivity go?”

Maintaining the status quo is their meal ticket and I seriously doubt they will allow anything to ever threaten that. Including allowing a favorable resolution of those core issues for their constituents. Divide/conquer and fear mongering seem to be their favored tactic towards staying in power. I think that was in clear evidence during this recent HC debate. Honestly, I don’t think any core Republican looks at that loss as anything other than an outright political win. In my eyes, this to them is a win because the more of their base they keep on their side of the isle, to keep on “fighting for them”, the longer they get to keep on being relevant and enrich themselves as they keep on enriching already very rich people.

Think about that for a second. They were able to get huge numbers of people actually and seriously pissed off at having a better deal as far as their own health care coverage goes! Is anyone going to tell me that was not the most genius stroke of political manipulation of this generation? A good portion of members in our society are going to ultimately benefit from that. And around half of them are still going to feel liked they got fucked in the ass! Want proof? Look no further than the comments from the right side of that debate. GENIUS!

Agree with me or not. Split hairs on specific issues I brought up and tear me up on them to your heart’s content. But I defy anyone to look overall at what I said objectively and then honestly tell me I am wrong. Many may disagree with me philosophically and that is fine. But there is absolutely nothing you or anyone else can say to refute my underlying belief that RR fucked us all royally and that the Republican Party is the party of exploitation.