Thom Hartmann: Will Bunch- 'The Decline Started With Ronald Reagan'

Source:Thom Hartmann- President Ronald W. Reagan (Republican, California) 40th President of the United States.

"Thom Hartmann and Will Bunch, Senior Fellow-Media Matters / columnist-Philadelphia Daily News / author-Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future (His latest book is  The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama"), discuss Ronald Reagan, and the myth of his legacy

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From Thom Hartmann

If you want to look at the decline of the American economy, it actually goes back to the late 1960s with the Vietnam War and the Great Society entitlement programs, where Federal Government spending went up way more then our Federal Government has traditionally spent. 

Pre-1970 it wasn't uncommon for the Federal Government to balance its budget but starting in 1969-70, balancing the Federal budget became uncommon. Because of all of the money that we were spending at home and oversees. 

The 1970s was probably the worst decade we had economically pre-Great Recession and it came after the 1960s which was one of our best decades economically. President Nixon inherited a slowing economy and the Nixon Administration didn't do much to help with expanding the Vietnam War, price controls and the energy freeze. The Ford Administration which inherited a recession with high unemployment and inflation. As well as an energy freeze but at least they tried to address these issues without much success. 

The Carter Administration inherited a bad economy as well in 1977 again with high unemployment, which of course got worse in 1978 with another recession in 1980, with high unemployment, high inflation, high interest rates. As much as you want to criticize Ron Reagan as President and I criticize him a lot for his supply side economic policy, not paying for his tax cuts or government expansion, the American economy did dramatically improve under President Reagan's watch in the 1980s. 

The economy approved in the 1980s: we went from low economic growth to high economic growth by 1984. From 10% unemployment to 7% by 1984 and 5% by 1989 when he left office with low inflation and interest rates. 

The Reagan Administration inherited a bad economy and left office with a good economy, but left office with the highest national debt and deficit in American history, due to President Reagan's supply side economic policy. The tax cuts and defense spending would've been fine fiscally, had he paid for them. 

So-called Progressives in America (like the Thom Hartmann's of the world) who are actually Democratic Socialists in America, like to blame Ron Reagan more then even George W. Bush for today's Great Recession and perhaps every other problem were facing as a country. And not grant President Reagan the fact that he inherited a horrible economy that had just come out of recession. Like the third one of the 1970s and about to go into another one in 1982, because he cut taxes from 70% to I believe 36-39% somewhere in there. 

And of course the Far-Left in America (Socialists and Communists) have this overall economic view that the main problems with our economy is that Americans including the middle class, don't pay enough in taxes and the Federal Government doesn't do enough. Our problems have to do with fact that we don't have 50-60% tax rates like in Britain and Sweden. And our Federal Government doesn't spend enough, that our private sector is too large and that our public sector isn't big enough. Where its spending around 50-60% of our GDP like in Europe. 

But we tried a similar approach with a 70% Tax Rate from the mid 1960s to 1981 and our economy didn't do very well in that period. Plus with the Vietnam War and the explosion in entitlement spending, Ronald Reagan has become for Socialists what FDR is for Conservatives and Libertarians: their favorite whipping boy.