In a message dated 12/5/02 12:55:20 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << Me again,
Did "Reaganomics" essentially hinge on the Laffer Curve (i.e. the elasticity of tax receipts w/ respect to tax rate [?]), and its implications regarding tax revenue? Or was there alot more to it than that? Sorry about clogging your boxes--I'll mellow out for a while, -jsh >> For what it's worth, I think that opponents of Reagan either among the Democrats or among their many allies in the news media invented the expression as a term of derision. To the degree that anyone who supported Reagan used it, it generally referred to the whole panoply of Reagan economic policies--large, across-the-board cuts in marginal personal income tax rates, increase in the unified transfer tax (gift and estate tax) exemption, various changes in corporate income taxes, veto protection against Congress' efforts to stop for Volcker's efforts to reign in growth of the money supply, attempts to reduce the projected growth rates in non-defense discretionary spending and balance the budget, degregulation, etc. Many Republicans who came into the Reagan administration, in particular those moderates who came in through George Bush the Elder, did not believe in supply-side tax cuts at all, and some non-supply-side conservatives allegedly wanted larger deficits as an excuse for curbing the growth of federal spending. Frankly I don't see too much use for the term other than as a derogatory one, and think that discussing specific policies and they effectiveness bears more fruit than discussing "Reaganonmics" generally. David Levenstam
