Reaganomics vs. (Bushanomics?)
The economic policy of Ronald Reagan is strikingly similar to the one we live under today. For starters, both Presidents believed in supply-side economics, and therefore supported big businesses. Both also Presidents increased military spending (Reagan by 40%) to pay for increased defense of the most secure country in history. Reagan created the missle-defense system in an attempt to ward off possible nuclear assault, and to help pay for it, he cut taxes to encourage spending, just as Bush II did. In a startling inconsistency, Reagan also supported the Federal Reserve Board’s tight money policy, which discouraged spending. To my knowledge, Bush II did not destroy his credibility in this fashion. However, his tax cuts only affected the rich. To no surprise then is the fact that the poor and those suffering in poverty suffered under Reagan and Bush II. Though welfare must be abolished, the poor must not be the only ones being taxed. Tax cuts that benefit only the rich contradict the american dream, because the poor are unable to work their way up the ladder of success if they are weighed down by taxes. Bush continues Reagan’s tradition of granting the missle defense system $9,500,000,000 annually (Pentagon). According to the American Society of Physicists, the missle defense program would not work from a physic standpoint; “Now that is just one example of a clinically insane allocation of your tax dollars…that’s what Bush is: a taxer of grandchildren.” -(Ralph Nader). In short, both Presidents believed in subsidizing large corporations (supply-side economics), and cutting taxes, while drastically increasing defense spending for unnecessary wars in countries like Iraq, Grenada, and Nicaragua, which are not a threat to anyone in the United States, just as they were not a threat to their neighbors.
January 27th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Bush suffers from unprecidented incompetance as well as insane stubbornness in sticking to his disastrous international and domestic polcies! Bring on sanity in the form of Clinton (P) and Obama (VP)