Tale Of Two Recoveries

IBD Editorials ^ | December 9, 2010 | Staff

[Kaslin]

Leadership: A mainstream media guru says the president is channeling Ronald Reagan but risks becoming Jimmy Carter. Reagan's policies worked, Carter's didn't and Obama's haven't. Wake up and smell the tax cuts.

Noted journalist Howard Fineman, a former Newsweek icon now plying his thoughts at the Huffington Post, is not happy with President Obama's embrace of fiscal and political reality by striking a deal with a resurgent GOP that extends the Bush tax cuts.

Typical of mainstream media angst, Fineman opines that Obama has "just been backed — or backed himself — into a Reaganite corner" and embraced the "essence of the Reagan years, (which) was stimulative tax cuts that would grow the economy, yes, but leave a legacy of debt that would ultimately require program-starving governmental austerity."

We haven't noticed any starving-governmental austerity for quite some time, and it's about time for some. As always, we are in fiscal trouble not because we tax too little but because we spend too much. Reagan stimulated the economy. Up to now, the Obama recovery has failed because all it stimulated was the government.

Fineman forgets the economic disaster Reagan inherited from Jimmy Carter. Inflation raged at 12.5% when he took office and was 4.4% when he left. Poverty and unemployment were rising, incomes were falling, productivity was stagnant, economic growth had ceased and the stock market was on the verge of collapse.

Reagan not only reversed the malaise of Jimmy Carter but fueled an economic boom that lasted 92 months without recession. Unemployment sank from 7.1% to 5.5% and the prime interest rate fell from 15.3% to 9.3% as we enjoyed a then-record boom.

[raptor22]

ping

[B4Ranch]

Cut government spending! Get rid of the UN!

These bastards in Washington can always find a reason to spend more and more of our money.