Tag: Politics

At the end of the 1970s, America undertook a grand experiment. By a relatively narrow margin Ronald Reagan’s political coalition took control, with its belief that America suffered from “too much”: too much government, too much regulation, too many gas lines, too much inflation, and too slow growth. The cure was supposed to be that if we would only let entrepreneurship and enterprise rip–and tolerate a somewhat-higher degree of income and wealth economy–we would have an acceleration of economic growth that would not only enrich the well-off, not only boost the growth rate of real GDP, but also raise general economic welfare as well. With a bigger pie, even a smaller slice would be more pie.

Thirty-five years later, it is as clear as things could be that it did not work.

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