Biden is leading a quiet revolution
By E.J. Dionne Jr.,
“Our economic package is a closely knit, carefully constructed plan to restore America’s economic strength and put our nation back on the road to prosperity,” the president declared in a speech from the Oval Office. “Each part of this package is vital.”
While President Biden could have said that about the $1.9 trillion economic rescue package the House sent to his desk on Wednesday, the words were President Ronald Reagan’s in support of his 25 percent across-the-board tax cut in July 1981.
Forty years ago, the victory of Reagan’s tax cut plan inaugurated a new ideological era, its core conviction summarized by a line in Reagan’s inaugural address that conservatives of a certain age can recite in their sleep: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.”
Passage of the Biden plan reflects the triumph of precisely the opposite view: that only active and competent government can get us out of the mess we’re in now. The willingness of Democrats to speed through a program of this size reflects the final shrugging off of Reagan-era constraints that made even liberal politicians gun-shy about government activism.
The shift away from top-down supply-side economics could not be more dramatic. The Reagan theory, reduced to its essence, was: Help the rich, and their investments will produce jobs and prosperity for everyone else. The Biden theory is bottom-up: Help middle-class and low-income Americans, and their purchasing power will drive an unprecedented era of growth.
more/NO PAYWALL
https://hagerstownairport.org/2021/03/11/biden-is-leading-a-quiet-revolution/
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H.W. Bush was the first to call it out in their primaries as "Voodoo Economics" (immortalized in of all things "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"...something d-o-o economics? Anyone? Anyone?)
There should be no serious doubt about the efficacy (or total lack thereof) in the theory. It is an abject failure, probably no graphic shows this better than the decoupling of wages and productivity:
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and also here:
The 40 years from FDR in '33 to the stagflation and gas embargoes of the mid- to late-70's were far more prosperous and equitable and wages grew with productivity.
The 40 years from Reagan in '81 to the current catastrophe in '21 is no accident or even accumulation of horrible executive leadership (see Bush, G.W. or Trump, D.J.). It is a fundamental lack of asset allocation to the bottom, which drives healthy consumption rates and allows a stable economy to prevail.
I mean stable as in rising tides ACTUALLY lifting the boats stuck in dry dock BEFORE the yachts and those already doing fine.
This could definitely be a BFD and a legacy issue to mark the era of a return to big government doing audacious things and the economy benefiting in its wake. Think of all that spun off from NASA and technology investments in the 50's, 60's and early 70's. Now apply that level of investment to distribution of spending power from the bottom up and instead of military application, environmental application driving the train...
A bright future, free of cataclysmic wars and strife just might be out there if we get enough visionary leadership and courage in our government. The fight from the crabs looking to pull us back into the bucket instead of crawling out is ongoing right now - you see it in every yokel asshat with no mask or a "fuck your feelings" T-shirt...but we have something today that was dangerously close to being extinguished in January...real hope once more.