A lot has been written on the Bush campaign claiming the mantle of Reagan. I found a similarity in today’s Paul Krugman piece about the Reagan economy in the New York Times:
“The secret of the long climb after 1982 was the economic plunge that preceded it. By the end of 1982 the U.S. economy was deeply depressed, with the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression. So there was plenty of room to grow before the economy returned to anything like full employment.
The depressed economy in 1982 also explains ‘Morning in America,’ the economic boom of 1983 and 1984. You see, rapid growth is normal when an economy is bouncing back from a deep slump. (Last year, Argentina’s economy grew more than 8 percent.)”
I’ve discussed this strategy elsewhere. It boils down to this: make as big a mess as possible, then when you clean up a small amount of the mess, things will look much, much better than they were. On the economy perhaps Bush has taken a page from Reagan’s playbook. Of course, there are some differences in approach, with Reagan willing to reverse himself and increase taxes in response to the economy and Bush, well, maintaining that he’s doing the (only) right thing (ever).
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