I was around 20% in the Reagan administration. During a recession businesses go below capacity captial (K, not $) lies idle. There is no incentive to increase investment until the K slack is taken back up for most industries. So if say 10% of industries (young industries usually) are still interested in investing you get about 2% of the economy involved in actively growing. The rest of the contributors to I are actually doing less than they were before to increase I, so you actually see a net drop in I in absolute terms and as a % of GDP. So I wasn't the catalyst for growth in the 80%, it only contributed later on after consumers and government led the way. I too had a Reagan of my mind. I had to write a big paper on the early 80's recession (not huge, but some 27 pages in the end). I tried to fit the data to what my preconception of Reagan were, but I couldn't. Sure Reagan was hard on unions, pushed a lot of bank regulation, and cut taxes, but the man spent a TON OF $$$$$. There has been no sustained period of exceptional economic growth (over 5% for more than 5 years) since the 20's that has happened when government didn't increase expenditures significantly (run deficits). Yes government can be inefficient, this should really be looked at as an opportunity rather than an hindrance. I don't think that it is probably as inefficient as you might think, but if it was it should be easy to realize huge gains in efficiency by reforming it. If you could perform the same tasks for less and just plowed the money into more government services or infrastructure development it would translate into immediate increases in GDP. If you just sent the money go JOB CREATORS who are already operating in a business environment that is under capacity they would pocket the money and say thank you very much.
http://www.heritage.org/BudgetChartbook/mandatory-discretion... The guy did not, as you noted, veto enough of the runaway spending by mostly Democratic Congresses (who really spend the money - not the President).
Discretionary spending 1980-276 bil 1989-488 bil
Mandatory spending 1980-262 bil 1989- 486 bil Taxation became regressive, payroll taxes burden as a share of GDP went up, Cooperate taxes went down, payroll taxes went down for all, but with greater decreases for big earners. This is often cited as a reason the economy did well during the Reagan years, but if you are looking for similar historical comparisons of times when the economy grew for averages of more then 5% a year for more than 5 years the factor that is found in every example since WWI is higher government spending. This might be the single example where regressive taxes increased growth for an extended period of time, but I suspect government spending was the thing that did it. I think Reagan was all for this spending, and give him a large share of the credit for the recovery in the 80's. You might not, and what that would mean to me is that it wasn't Reagan, but congress that caused significant growth in the 80's.
Did the Heritage Foundation recommend "individual health care mandates"
Back in 1994 when Hillary Clinton was trying to reform healthcare?
Thank you for your email to The Heritage Foundation. Answer: In 1994, Heritage wished to present a plausible, conservative alternative to Clinton's healthcare recommendations. At the time, we did recommend those individual mandates as that alternative. However, our experts at Heritage reconsidered that policy and found that it was not the best solution we could find. Thus, Heritage changed its approach and looked for solutions that placed more emphasis on individual responsibility. Additionally, Heritage has been working with state governments and trying to craft policies from a state level. Thanks again for your question to Heritage. Sincerely, Andrew Vitaliti Membership Intern So, here was my answer: Here is the answer from the Heritage Foundation. So, your "journalist" from the Washington Post did tell the truth; the problem is that it was a half truth. As usual, supposed "journalists" tell enough of the truth to support their particular "world view". In this case, Heritage obviously reversed itself on the individual mandate position, but your buddy forgot to include this tidy little detail. I still have the paperwork (which I forwarded to Chrysler's Washington Liaison office in 1994, and in none of the major six alternative plans is there an individual mandate mentioned. So, until you can pinpoint the source of your figures, I cannot take them seriously; although you are welcome to post the source.