J.R. McGrath: Another Reagan? He simply made the rich richer

Re “Netanyahu is better than Obama” (Letters, March 20): A response from the internet machine to the writer that suggested we need another Reagan. First of all, he should have been impeached for Iran/Contra. And on the economy?

“The epitaph of the Reagan presidency will be: ‘When Ronald Reagan became President, the United States was the largest creditor nation. When he left the presidency, we were the world’s largest debtor nation.’” – Lester Thurow, MIT professor of economics. Or, “(A) lapse into fiscal indiscipline on a scale never before experienced in peacetime,” wrote David Stockman (Reagan’s budget director) in his book, “The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed.”

According to Stockman, Reagan’s theory was really trickle-down economics borrowed from the 1920s (Harding-Coolidge-Hoover) and renamed “supply side” economics, which held that low tax rates for the wealthy would benefit everyone else. As Stockman confided to me at the time, the supply-side rhetoric “was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate.” Many middle-class and poor citizens figured it out, even if reporters did not.

This story was originally published March 23, 2015 at 3:01 PM with the headline "J.R. McGrath: Another Reagan? He simply made the rich richer."