Fwd: GOOD ECONOMICS

 

 

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GOOD ECONOMICS

via Nealz Nuze on 2/11/11

As Arthur Laffer writes in the Wall Street Journal, "The true lesson to be learned from the Reagan presidency is that good economics isn't Republican or Democrat, right-wing or left-wing, liberal or conservative. It's simply good economics." Unfortunately for us, we have a president who fails to understand this. While the Bush tax cuts did remain in effect (thanks to last year's Tea Party activists) you can guarantee that there will be a push to increase taxes on the evil rich in the next election. This wealth envy campaign has consequences - negative consequences - for our economy. For a man who is often compared to Ronald Reagan by the ObamaMedia, The Community Organizer is no Ronald Reagan. For a man who claims to be focused on jobs and our economy, his desire for a centrally planned economy will leave us with nothing more than debt, stagnant growth and more government.

Ronald Reagan managed to pull our country out of a ditch with simple logical solutions to foster growth. For one, he understood that taxes change behavior, and changed behavior costs tax revenue. Knowing this to be true, Reagan dropped the tax rate on unearned income from 70% to 28%. He also lowered our corporate tax rates from 46% to 34%. What happened as a result? From the WSJ: "The highest 1% of income earners paid more in taxes as a share of GDP in 1988 at lower tax rates than they had in 1980 at higher tax rates." That's right ... MORE tax revenue from the evil rich when tax rates were lowered. Why? Because their economic activity increased as the reward became greater. Yet, we currently have a president who, when presented similar facts about capital gains taxes, said that he would STILL raise them "for the purposes of fairness." This isn't good economics ... this is left-wing, Marxist, redistribute-the-wealth thinking.

Another thing that Ronald Reagan did was decrease regulations imposed by our imperial federal government: understanding that regulation compliance costs money and stifles growth. Reagan managed to slash the number of pages in the Federal Register from 80,000 in 1980 to 48,000 in 1986. Meanwhile, ObamaCare alone will add over 6,000 pages to our Federal Register. In 2010, the Obama administration implemented 43 new regulations (that's just regulations, not pages in the Federal Register) at a cost to our economy of $26.5 billion, according to the Heritage Foundation.

How did things turn out for Ronald Reagan?

From December 1982 to June 1990, Reaganomics created over 21 million jobs-more jobs than have been added since. Union membership and man-hours lost due to strikes tumbled. The stock market went through the roof. From July 1982 through August 2000, the S&P 500 stock price index grew at an average annual real rate of over 12%. The unfunded liabilities of the Social Security system declined as a share of GDP, and the "misery index" fell to under 10%.

How are things working out for Barak Obama? Just look around.