Will Obama policy look like Reaganomics? (Jesse Jackson Jr./CNN)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Jesse L. Jackson Jr., Special to CNN
December 10, 2010 2:43 p.m. EST

(CNN) -- In the early 1980s, President Ronald Reagan's budget director, David Stockman, developed a "starve the beast" strategy that would seek ultimately to shrink the size of government through drastic cuts in social programs.

By passing huge tax cuts, especially for the wealthiest Americans, Stockman and Reagan could force Congress to reduce the size of programs that the administration did not favor under the guise of deficit reduction. At the same time, increased Cold War military spending would create pressure for further cuts in social programs.

As a result, when Reagan refused to cut Social Security and other major safety net programs, Stockman had to "savage" other programs, as one article at the time put it. That meant Head Start, Jobs Corps, programs for women and children, and other vital programs were in Stockman's sights to be sliced and diced, or terminated outright.
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Now, that original deal is being trashed, and those who benefited most under the tax system of the past decade stand to get another windfall. If this new tax compromise goes through, then we will shirk our responsibility to reduce unemployment while exacerbating the deficit. This is bad policy and bad politics at a time when voters have clearly rejected running up the debt if it does not create jobs.

Instead, we should cut taxes for lower- and middle-income families, and invest the money that would have been given to the wealthiest among us into a jobs program to put Americans back to work. If this deal goes through, the money we could have used on a jobs program will be squandered.
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more: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/10/jackson.obama.reagan/index.html?hpt=T2

[Demeter]

1. Much Worse

He knows better.