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Economic and Social Policies under the Reagan Administration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Robert J. Lampman
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Extract

President Ronald Reagan brought a new circus to town in 1981. He billed it as offering never-before-seen, awe-inspiring acts of skill and daring, with demand-side management by ‘rational expectations monetarists’ and supply-side engineering by ‘new economists’, the performers in the centre ring would tame inflation and usher in permanent growth. Others would increase defence expenditures while cutting taxes and balancing the budget all at one and the same time without hurting the ‘truly needy’ or weakening the legitimate ‘safety nets’ of the ‘merely seedy’. The grand finale would bring forth the problem-saving capacities of states and localities as well as private philanthropies, all of which had been ‘crowded out’, according to Reagan, by an overspending, overtaxing, over-regulating, problem-causing federal government, which had been the featured performer in previous, not very successful ‘great shows’ in Washington.

Type
Review Article
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , July 1983 , pp. 379 - 385
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

REFERENCES

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