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SUPPLY-SIDE ECONOMICS
Since the Reagan administration, the Republican Party has been enraptured by what the first President Bush called "voodoo economics" - the "theory" that tax cuts pay for themselves by boosting economic growth and tax receipts.
Republicans have acted on this misguided theory over and over, with the same results: record-high deficits, soaring debt and reduced economic growth in the long run.
The Reagan tax cuts caused huge deficits. In the short term, the economy grew, as the borrowed money sloshed around the economy. Or, as Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan put it, we borrowed a trillion dollars from the Chinese and threw a party.
When the party was over, we endured the severe recession of 1989-91. Nearly every major bank in New Hampshire failed. The re-election campaign of the first President Bush failed along with the economy.
Our next Republican president, George W. Bush, copied the Reagan playbook - huge tax cuts for the rich, a temporary rise in the economy, followed by the Great Recession.
Recent Democratic administrations provide the counterpoint to "voodoo"...