From: lazarus@ocf.berkeley.edu (Andrew J. Lazarus)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.marrou,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Re: Reagan redux (was Re: A Clinton Mandate?!?)
Date: 23 Nov 92 21:52:28 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: maelstrom.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Nov22.230747.18154@oakhill.sps.mot.com> pjm@anegada.sps.mot.com (Patrick J. McGuinness) writes:

Let me try again. 

>In article <1emcu4INNhsi@agate.berkeley.edu> lazarus@ocf.berkeley.edu (Andrew J. Lazarus) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov21.202009.8198@oakhill.sps.mot.com> pjm@anegada.sps.mot.com (Patrick J. McGuinness) writes:
>>>In article <1ee9d8INN8kg@agate.berkeley.edu> lazarus@ocf.berkeley.edu (Andrew J. Lazarus) writes:

>Yup, Apples to oranges. Problem is, you started with the apples vs. oranges
>when you responded to my statement that tax receipts during the
>Reagan term increased with your above statement.
>I guess the subtlety of picking irrelevent statistics to make a
>non-rebuttal are lost on a dunderhead like me. ;-)

It would seem to me that the effects of the Reagan tax cuts should be
measured by receipts from those taxes, and not my adding in the other
receipts for taxes Reagan RAISED. Your original statement was not that
tax receipts went up
 which is technically true (but
misleading, since it relies on the raxes which went up, not the ones
which went down), but that they went up from the tax cut, which is
false. You are now speculating that the (eventual) increase in these
receipts is greater than would have happened otherwise.
I could probably find economists who either don't believe this or who
don't think any such subjunctive analysis is reliable, but regardless,
it leaves you admitting that Reaganomics is the source of the enormous
debt which began with those yreears' runaway deficits. (You continue to
play down the surge in defense spending by pointing out that 5 years
later it had abated. This makes no sense at all: if I 
increase my expenses and then cut back to the status quo ante,
I still have the accumulated debt!)

>My whole point was to show you were missing the (my) point:
>Do you agree that total tax revenues went up under Reagan?
>Do you agree that total GNP increased under Reagan?
>What was the tax revenue picture for the whole of his time in office,
>not just a few selected years?

I selected 1981-85, i.e. his entire first term.

>>              --> BOGUS COLUMNS <---
>You consider the Statistic Abstract 'bogus'? :-)

No, but if you ever get a copy, you will see that this tables has been
massaged to make Reagan look good by combining columns relating Federal
Funds and Trust Funds.

>Horror of horrors. Yes, I listed total receipts.
>How else can we look at the whole budget and deficit picture?

It is dishnoest economics to include the Trust Funds (which have to run
a surplus to pay for Baby Boomer retirements!) with the day-to-day
Federal Funds expenses. The treatment of TF in the budget has been
changed at least three times in 30 years to compensate for this. It is
like including my pension in my monthly budget. All economist agree on
this.

>How else can I defend my (not dishonest, but accurate) claim that tax
>revenues under Reagan increased?

THAT'S MY POINT. Only by including the Trust Funds surplus can you
confuse the issue about how the Reagan tax cuts gave us humongous
deficits in the FederalFunds side of the ledger. I couldn't have put it
better myself. (except the dishonest part)

>of the Laffer curve. One can judge the Reagan tax cut a success
>in a number of ways: did not greatly reduce revenues, increased

Are you blind? It DID reduce revenues, for the next four or five years.


The saddest thing about Reagan-free-lunch-onomics (as an aside, note how
repeal of the business cycle was necessary for its super-deficit
financing not to come home to roost? But it did--under Bush....)
is that it seems to believe that there is no external world out there. I
mean, pjm posts over and over again in the face of evidence that tax
cuts didn't reduce revenue in the same posting they admit that they did.
Just like Bush didn't blieve there was a recession while he still had
his own job, Reagan-free-lunchers refuse to believe that the terrible
debt is the fault of their stupid theory as long as they can post how it
might have worked....

andy
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