Correcting the Revisionists on the Reagan Record

Townhall.com ^ | January 6, 2015 | David Limbaugh

[Kaslin]

My daughter asked me my opinion on an article she read in Vanity Fair attempting to debunk the presidential record of Ronald Reagan. I happily responded.

The writer of the piece is veteran liberal commentator Michael Kinsley, who used to be a regular on William F. Buckley Jr.'s "Firing Line" and CNN's "Crossfire." It's not as though he appeared out of nowhere, studied the evidence anew and shared a novel theory. He's been dissing Reaganomics for decades along with other Democrats and liberals, whose only recourse is to distort the Gipper's phenomenal record.

Why is this even relevant, you ask? Well, according to Kinsley, "every serious G.O.P. presidential aspirant invokes the glorious era of Ronald Reagan, to which the country must return. Ignore the fact that, for the likes of Paul Ryan and Rand Paul, Reagan's actual record -- from increased bureaucracy to higher deficits -- should be seen as a complete failure."

Ever since Reagan's two terms in office, Democrats have been trying to recast those years of remarkable peacetime growth without inflation as a time of abject greed, when the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. But the facts have never corroborated their propaganda.

To really understand Reagan's record -- and thus mainstream conservatism still today -- you must remember just how bleak things were during the Carter years. At the end of Jimmy Carter's term, unemployment was 7.4 percent and galloping toward double figures; inflation was already in double digits; and interest rates were a staggering 21.5 percent. There was no end in sight.

Indeed, I remember the general malaise that gripped the nation at that time -- the attitude of despair, fatalism and resignation. America's best years, according to Carter's apologists, were behind her, and it wasn't his fault that things were so abysmally bleak.

Reagan, against all naysayers, promised that the proper policies could unleash the sleeping economic giant again and that we could return to sustained, robust growth and prosperity. Once elected, despite strong opposition from Democrats in Congress, he fulfilled his promise.

Reagan inherited a steep recession but, unlike President Obama today, did not keep using it as an excuse well into his presidency. Reagan didn't need excuses, because his policies began to produce results very quickly.

Reagan had pushed for a 30 percent across-the-board cut in marginal income tax rates, but Democrats in Congress forced a reduction to 25 percent and delayed its implementation. But once the bill passed and kicked in, the results were dramatic.

Along with Reagan's policy of deregulation, his tax cuts produced an economic boom that continued for almost eight full years -- from November 1982 to July 1990 -- with not a scintilla of a recession.

Reagan's policies led to the largest period of economic growth to date in the history of the nation. The economy was nearly a third larger at the conclusion of the Reagan years than at the beginning, and real median family income grew by $4,000, as opposed to almost no growth during the Ford-Carter years.

Like President John F. Kennedy, Reagan demonstrated that reducing marginal income tax rates could increase revenues. Revenues almost doubled during the Reagan years, and even after adjusting for inflation, they increased by some 28 percent. Reaganomics also shattered the long-established economic textbook axiom that there is a trade-off between unemployment and inflation. Despite nearly 20 million new jobs, there was barely any upward pressure on prices.

Though Democrats preached that under Reagan, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, in fact the plight of all income groups improved. Not only that but upward mobility, which received its last rites under Carter, made a dramatic comeback, as a Treasury Department study revealed that 86 percent of the people in the lowest 20 percent of income in 1979 graduated into higher categories during the '80s. More people in every income group moved up than down except -- ironically -- the top one percent of earners.

Moreover, the real Reagan record puts the lie to the liberal manta that the rich didn't pay their "fair share." In the first place, average effective income tax rates were cut more for lower-income groups than for higher-income groups. In 1991, after the Reagan cuts had been in place for almost a decade, the top 1 percent of income earners paid 25 percent of income taxes; the top 5 percent paid 43 percent; and the bottom half paid only 5 percent. How is that for fairness?

Unfortunately, Reagan didn't achieve the spending reductions he'd envisioned, though some misinformation exists here, too. Military spending constituted much of the increase -- by design and by necessity after Carter's gutting of our vital defenses. But the rate of domestic spending grew more slowly under Reagan than under his immediate predecessors and would have been reduced far more but for recalcitrant big-spending Democratic congressmen.

The military spending, coupled with Reagan's coherent peace-through-strength foreign policy, yielded immeasurable dividends, as the Soviet Union soon disintegrated. And no, my revisionist liberal friends, this was not because of a willing, enlightened Mikhail Gorbachev.

President Reagan is still the model for conservative presidential aspirants -- and for very good reasons that will not be erased, no matter how earnestly liberals try.

[Tucker39]

Michael Kinsley; the original “pencil-necked geek”.

[TalBlack]

The thing that purely terrifies the liars about RR is not his record. Rather it is that he so easily displaced the doom and gloom that they had successfully implanted into the minds of many Americans. He LED this nation.

[ArtDodger]

The Reagan years were heady and hopeful. Businesses were starting up, ideas were brewing, people were spending money like crazy on ..things their hearts desired. But, as ever, there was the looming fear of the ever-growing socialist government that blocked out the sun, like Tip O’Neil’s shadow.

[knarf]

and he did it with common sense, plain, one syllable talk ... just talkin' to people about what he thought was wrong and what he thought was right and what he thought we should DO about it.

His jokes and stories were so down home, the libs had to attend therapy in order to re-claim their madness after an hour of being with President Reagan.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Reagan's policies led to the largest period of economic growth to date in the history of the nation. The economy was nearly a third larger at the conclusion of the Reagan years than at the beginning, and real median family income grew by $4,000, as opposed to almost no growth during the Ford-Carter years.

Let Michael Kinsley debate these federal government facts.

I think these federal government numbers support those two facts and the other facts in the article about the Reagan Administration.

GDP data ref: BEA glossary
GDP 1929 - 2014 Current-Dollar and "Real" Gross Domestic Product (Seasonally adjusted annual rates)

	Annual
	GDP in billions of current dollars	GDP in billions of chained 2009 dollars
1980	2,862.5	6,450.4
1981	3,211.0	6,617.7
1982	3,345.0	6,491.3
1983	3,638.1	6,792.0
1984	4,040.7	7,285.0
1985	4,346.7	7,593.8
1986	4,590.2	7,860.5
1987	4,870.2	8,132.6
1988	5,252.6	8,474.5
1989	5,657.7	8,786.4
1990	5,979.6	8,955.0
1991	6,174.0	8,948.4
1992	6,539.3	9,266.6
1993	6,878.7	9,521.0
1994	7,308.8	9,905.4
1995	7,664.1	10,174.8
1996	8,100.2	10,561.0
1997	8,608.5	11,034.9
1998	9,089.2	11,525.9
1999	9,660.6	12,065.9
2000	10,284.8	12,559.7
2001	10,621.8	12,682.2
2002	10,977.5	12,908.8
2003	11,510.7	13,271.1
2004	12,274.9	13,773.5
2005	13,093.7	14,234.2
2006	13,855.9	14,613.8
2007	14,477.6	14,873.7
2008	14,718.6	14,830.4
2009	14,418.7	14,418.7
2010	14,964.4	14,783.8
2011	15,517.9	15,020.6
2012	16,163.2	15,369.2
2013	16,768.1	15,710.3

Labor Force Statistics from the Census Bureau Current Population Survey (CPS) and other federal sources.

See below for table information.

Column headings

1. Population
2. Civilian noninstitutional population [thousands]
3. Civilian labor force [thousands]
4. Civilian labor force participation rate
5. Employed [thousands]
6. Employment-population ratio
7. Employed full time (persons who usually work 35 hours or more) [thousands]
8. Employed part time (persons who usually work less than 35 hours
9. Unemployed [thousands]
10. Unemployed looking for full-time work [thousands]
11. Unemployment rate
12. Unemployment rate of the full-time labor force
13. Not in labor force [thousands]

N = not available.Some columns are omitted to fit desired columns on a PC screen. The additional columns are explained below.

Year	3.	4.	6.	7.	8.	13.
1948	60840	58.8	56.6	N	N	N
1949	62032	59.4	55.3	N	N	N
1950	62260	59.2	56.8	N	N	N
1951	62225	59.4	57.4	N	N	N
1952	62362	59.0	57.3	N	N	N
1953	62870	58.5	56.3	N	N	N
1954	63668	58.5	55.4	N	N	N
1955	66100	60.0	57.5	N	N	N
1956	66635	59.8	57.3	N	N	N
1957	67197	59.5	56.6	N	N	N
1958	67814	59.3	55.6	N	N	N
1959	68783	59.3	56.0	N	N	N
1960	70239	59.6	55.9	N	N	N
1961	70314	59.0	55.3	N	N	N
1962	70881	58.6	55.3	N	N	N
1963	72298	58.7	55.4	N	N	N
1964	73353	58.5	55.6	N	N	N
1965	74908	58.9	56.5	N	N	N
1966	76483	59.5	57.3	N	N	N
1967	78292	59.9	57.5	N	N	N
1968	79195	59.6	57.6	65503	10906	N
1969	81506	60.3	58.1	66929	11645	N
1970	83498	60.4	56.9	66654	11977	N
1971	85318	60.3	56.7	67622	12588	N
1972	87675	60.4	57.2	70115	12922	N
1973	90579	61.1	58.2	72560	13730	N
1974	92688	61.3	57.2	72825	13815	N
1975	94309	61.1	56.0	72269	14218	60028
1976	97102	61.8	57.0	74532	15037	60120
1977	100294	62.6	58.5	77922	15763	59846
1978	103484	63.5	59.7	81416	16046	59541
1979	105923	63.8	60.0	83345	16389	60131
1980	107442	63.7	59.0	82648	16843	61252
1981	109057	63.8	58.5	82799	17262	61933
1982	110959	64.1	57.3	80606	18409	62087
1983	112160	64.1	58.6	83997	18556	62790
1984	114257	64.5	59.8	87458	18487	62876
1985	116211	64.9	60.4	89259	18778	62730
1986	118587	65.4	60.9	91297	19194	62778
1987	120593	65.7	61.9	93914	19660	62874
1988	122488	66.1	62.6	95927	20053	62765
1989	124448	66.5	63.0	98015	19823	62570
1990	126069	66.4	62.3	98285	20123	63797
1991	126669	66.1	61.4	96973	20692	64982
1992	128340	66.3	61.4	97949	20891	65276
1993	129742	66.3	61.9	99952	21282	65879
1994	131862	66.7	63.0	101003	23465	65739
1995	132614	66.5	62.8	102217	23064	66738
1996	135014	67.0	63.5	104753	23152	66444
1997	136916	67.1	64.0	107293	23293	67019
1998	138431	67.2	64.2	109129	23264	67666
1999	139991	67.1	64.4	111415	23010	68669
2000	142944	66.9	64.3	114163	23340	70616
2001	144210	66.7	63.0	112610	23694	71901
2002	145140	66.4	62.5	112942	23755	73403
2003	146815	66.1	62.2	113947	24346	75461
2004	148005	66.0	62.4	115204	24846	76413
2005	150032	66.0	62.8	117753	24888	77164
2006	152393	66.3	63.3	120658	24989	77503
2007	153645	66.0	62.8	121621	24727	79291
2008	154723	65.9	61.4	118281	25836	80102
2009	153591	64.9	58.4	110906	27423	83148
2010	153799	64.4	58.3	111653	27443	84913
2011	153980	64.0	58.5	113268	27346	86452
2012	155424	63.7	58.7	115616	27664	88745
2013	154949	62.8	58.5	116845	27348	91616
2014	155948(III)	62.8(III)	59.0(III)	118797(III)	27724(III)	92285(III)

pop.

146630

149190

152270

154880

157550

160180

163030

165930

168900

171980

174880

177830

180670

183690

186540

189240

191890

194300

196560

198710

200710

202680

205050

207660

209900

211910

213850

215970

218040

220240

222580

225060

227220

229470

231660

233790

235820

237920

240130

242290

244500

246820

249620

252980

256510

259920

263130

266280

269390

272650

275850

279040

282160

284970

287630

290110

292810

295520

298380

301230

304090

306770

309330

311590

313910

316160

319470

one*	two**	three***
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	N
N	N	43,558
N	N	45,435
N	N	47,124
N	N	46,759
N	N	46,304
N	N	48,287
N	N	49,262
N	N	47,702
N	N	46,453
N	N	47,224
N	N	47,523
N	N	49,362
N	N	49,225
N	N	47,668
N	N	46,877
N	N	46,751
N	N	46,425
N	N	47,866
N	N	48,761
N	N	50,488
N	N	51,121
N	N	51,514
N	N	52,432
N	N	51,735
N	N	50,249
N	N	49,836
N	N	49,594
N	N	50,148
N	N	51,719
N	N	52,471
N	N	53,551
N	N	55,497
N	N	56,895
N	N	56,800
N	N	55,562
N	N	54,913
N	N	54,865
N	N	54,674
N	N	55,278
N	N	55,689
123524	22810	56,436
121211	22138	54,423
116663	21290	54,059
117006	22153	52,646
118033	22647	51,842
119844	23216	51,759
120636	23787	51,939
122558	25108	N
labor	labor	median
force	force	income
domestic	foreign
born	born
[1000s]	[1000s]

Recession (qtr)

November 1948(IV) to

October 1949(IV)

-

-

-

July 1953(II) to

May 1954(II)

-

-

August 1957(III) to

April 1958(II)

-

April 1960(II) to

February 1961(I)

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

December 1969(IV) to

November 1970(IV)

-

-

November 1973(IV)

to

March 1975(I)

-

-

-

-

January(I) to July 1980(III)

July 1981(III) to

November 1982(IV)

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

July 1990(III) to

March 1991(I)

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

March(I) to November 2001 (IV)

-

-

-

-

-

December 2007 (IV)

to

June 2009 (II)

-

-

-

-

-

^*,**One & Two: Source: to find the tables go here Data Retrieval: Labor Force Statistics (CPS)

HOUSEHOLD DATA Table A-7. Employment status of the civilian population by nativity and sex, not seasonally adjusted [Numbers in thousands]
Employment status and nativity. Then

• select Employed under Foreign born, 16 years and over and
• Employed under Native born, 16 years and over

Scroll down to "Retrieve Data"

The data that I include above are from the month of December except for 2014 where November is the last month with data available.

^***Three: For the Census Bureau income data go here. Choose "Consumer Income Reports (P60)" then choose "P60-249 Income and Poverty in the United States: 2013" (pdf file).

Table Information

I've combined several tables into one. Most of the tables were obtained here: go to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Labor Force Statisics from the Current Population Survey (CPS). Make your selections. I chose quarterly data.

I took the fourth quarter data from each table and combined them into the main part of the table above. For the year 2014 I took the third quarter data and marked the data with (III).

pop. Population data

Go hereU.S. population and US Census clock, Dec 22, 2014 319.47 million

Employment-population ratio

Employment-population ratio defined in BLS art4full.pdf file.

Civilian labor force participation rate

Civilian labor force participation rate defined in BLS art4full.pdf file.

Unemployment rate

Unemployment rate of the full-time labor force defined in BLS art4full.pdf file.

Recession

CENSUS BUREAU, BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS SOURCES

National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. Cambridge MA 02138 US Business Cycle Expansions and ContractionsLink from BLS SPOTLIGHT ON STATISTICS THE RECESSION OF 2007 – 2009

The NBER does not define a recession in terms of two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP.
Rather, a recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.

Footnotes

N Not available.

Z Represents or rounds to zero.

[Lakeshark]

Michael Kinsley, moron.

I remember those times well, everything Limbaugh says is true. Reagan was one of a handful of exceptional presidents, he genuinely brought the US back from the brink, and started an economic boom, stable peace, and a cultural renewal of close to 25 years.

[freeonefrom]

I liked how RR would not let the obstacles like Democrats, naysayers and the media get in his way. He would just move ahead with what he knew would work and would always be upbeat and it did work. He would talk to the American people and we would support him. The thing about today’s Republicans is they want power and to spend money in the way they want and do not trust the American with our own money. Sounds like Democrats and not Republicans. Republicans need to know that you are hated by the left and no matter what you do and how you act that will always be the case. Just do what is right and the rest will take care of itself.

[riverdawg]

I will, grudgingly, give the Carter Administration credit for two things:

1. A modest turnaround in defense spending as a share of GDP, after ten years of decline in the Nixon-Ford years:

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/defense_spending

2. Deregulation of the transportation (airline, trucking, and rail) industry:

http://reason.com/blog/2010/11/09/3-cheers-for-jimmy-carter-the

[SomeCallMeTim]

He would just move ahead with what he knew would work and would always be upbeat and it did work.

We could use a real dose of justified optimism in the country today.

[Impy]

Forget the “blame Bush” crowd, plenty of worthless pieces of pond scam are still blaming Reagan.