Debunking the Reagan Myth
By PAUL KRUGMAN
January 21, 2008
Historical narratives matter. That's why conservatives are still writing books denouncing F.D.R. and the New Deal; they understand that the way Americans perceive bygone eras, even eras from the seemingly distant past, affects politics today.
And it's also why the furor over Barack Obama's praise for Ronald Reagan is not, as some think, overblown. The fact is that how we talk about the Reagan era still matters immensely for American politics.
Bill Clinton knew that in 1991, when he began his presidential campaign. "The Reagan-Bush years," he declared, "have exalted private gain over public obligation, special interests over the common good, wealth and fame over work and family. The 1980s ushered in a Gilded Age of greed and selfishness, of irresponsibility and excess, and of neglect."
Contrast that with Mr. Obama's recent statement, in an interview with a Nevada newspaper, that Reagan offered a "sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing." [..]
The Reagan economy was a one-hit wonder. Yes, there was a boom in the mid-1980s, as the economy recovered from a severe recession. But while the rich got much richer, there was little sustained economic improvement for most Americans. By the late 1980s, middle-class incomes were barely higher than they had been a decade before ?- and the poverty rate had actually risen.
Given that reality, what was Mr. Obama talking about? [..] For example, I'm not sure what "dynamism" means, but if it means productivity growth, there wasn't any resurgence in the Reagan years. Eventually productivity did take off ?- but even the Bush administration's own Council of Economic Advisers dates the beginning of that takeoff to 1995. [..]
I understand why conservatives want to rewrite history and pretend that these good things happened while a Republican was in office ?- or claim, implausibly, that the 1981 Reagan tax cut somehow deserves credit for positive economic developments that didn't happen until 14 or more years had passed. [..]
But why would a self-proclaimed progressive say anything that lends credibility to this rewriting of history ?- particularly right now, when Reaganomics has just failed all over again?
Like Ronald Reagan, President Bush began his term in office with big tax cuts for the rich and promises that the benefits would trickle down to the middle class. Like Reagan, he also began his term with an economic slump, then claimed that the recovery from that slump proved the success of his policies.
And like Reaganomics ?- but more quickly ?- Bushonomics has ended in grief. The public mood today is as grim as it was in 1992. [..] This is, in short, a time when progressives ought to be driving home the idea that the right's ideas don't work, and never have. [..]
[P]rogressives have been granted a second chance to argue that Reaganism is fundamentally wrong: once again, the vast majority of Americans think that the country is on the wrong track. But they won't be able to make that argument if their political leaders, whatever they meant to convey, seem to be saying that Reagan had it right.
Maybe they should vote for the best candidate?
