Reagan liked to quote Mises (but I can’t seem to find the one attributed to Mises in his works: “A nation is the more prosperous today the less it has tried to put obstacles in the way of the spirit of free enterprise and private initiative.”)
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/2127/on-the-upside/
On the Upside
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Too bad Reagan only liked to quote Mises, and not actually follow any of his advice.
Actually, Reagan did do something good. According to Marginal Revolution, Reagan cut the budgets of 8 of the 15 major government agencies his first term and 10 of the 15 major government agencies his second term.
All of the other modern presidents have poor track records in this regard, especially George W. Bush who hasn’t cut the budgets of any of them.
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/06/comparing_bush_.html
Here is the raw data from the American Enterprise Institute as well:
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.20675/pub_detail.asp
Reagan didn’t push for tax cuts and deregulation, David?
Reagan reality check: when you hear that Reagan cut spending, spend a few minutes staring at this chart. Who are you going to believe? The Reaganites or your own eyes?
Summarily, Reagan was a whole lot of talk and no walk. Sure, the tax-cuts were good. That doesn’t mean that Reagan was good. What was really going on is that they were also eliminating all of the loopholes while pushing those tax-cuts through. So there really were no tax-cuts in total, and the nation entered into enormous debt (which we subsequently have to pay off).
Reagan only fought half the battle. Lowering taxes is easy. It is lowering spending that is difficult. He did appear to slow government growth, but did not lay a foundation for stopping it, much less rolling it back long-term (perhaps it is the downside of an 8 year window). Given we now have a huge portion of the credit market confiscated by the State (merely putting off the uses of force necessary to confiscate equity to some other time), which began under Reagan, a review of the legacy is necessary. One can blame it on a free spending Congress and the beginning of the ‘bill coming due’ under the New Deal and Great Society, but a real turning of the tide would have been necessary to give Reagan so much credit. The prosperity of the late 80′s and 90′s was put on a credit card and it is coming due. Of course Reagan is better than Bush II at this point, Bush II cutting taxes and massively expanding government entitlements and spending at the same time. Dark days are ahead.
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