An Economy of Abundance
What would a fair world look like?
Ronald Reagan introduced us to the thrumming drumbeat of austerity. Don’t expect the government to help you because it doesn’t have the money. It doesn’t have the money to negotiate with federal unions. It doesn’t have the money to provide aid to poor families. It doesn’t have the money to enforce anti-trust laws. I still remember the Reagan campaign spots:
It’s morning in America. The loan-officers are a little less demeaning. The war is a little less noisy. The rats are a little less diseased.
I made some of that up, but consistent with what Reagan actually meant, the average citizen didn’t get much golden sunshine from Morning in America. Fortunately, there was plenty of money to reduce taxes on the wealthy and to provide massive subsidies to the petroleum industry and to launch a little war in South America. That wasn’t what Reagan meant by the word “austerity”. He was applying that term only to average folks.
His view of the federal government as a feeble, incompetent wastrel remained popular with future administrations, Democrat and Republican. President Clinton announced that the era of big government (government that worked for the people) was over. Of course by restricting spending, the government was also restricting investment. Investment in IRS agents and…
