John, buddy, don’t let the dopes bring you down.
We do not have to concede to “(w)hatever one thinks of Reagan’s domestic policies.” Any objective observer must say that Reagan’s domestic policy was a quantum leap from what came before. It evinced a much greater understanding of human society and the limits of institutional power.
Remember Jimmy Carter was in the White House and his fiscal policy chiefly consisted of ramping up social programs — jobs programs in response to chronic unemployment, more spending on veterans programs, and increases in the Social Security payroll tax and wage base to fund increased benefits — and watching the deficit grow.
Actual economic growth was left to monetary policy, where the Fed was supposed to turn the money spigot on and off to more or less suit the economy. Carter followed in the footsteps of Nixon and Ford by viewing the White House as the place from which the executive branch cheerleaded against the resulting inevitable inflation with buttons, slogans, and voluntary wage and price controls. Of course, mandatory controls were always a viable, if last ditch, policy option, as Nixon demonstrated. But that was about the whole tool-kit.
Such was the state of domestic policy when Reagan began his climb to power. His singular insight was to reject the near-universal view that only thing that mattered was which “policy lever” powerful men in Washington chose to flick. Reagan understood that millions of choices made by millions of Americans were more powerful.
Cuts in marginal tax rates were important because they gave choices and options back to individuals. Similarly, individual choices play a role in whether one can find gainful employment. So for Reagan welfare was a compassionate response to a fellow citizen who had hit a bad patch, not a universal right built into a macroeconomic model to help sop up inevitable monetary overcorrections.
In Carter’s world individuals only could react to the world government made for them. If energy was too dear, then turn down your thermostat and put on a sweater. Don’t actually try to go out and find more energy, the world is steady-state and we know what’s best.
Scholars, to merit the name, simply cannot say “whatever” to these distinctions. Reagan’s approach to government was every bit as revolutionary as that of Bismarck.
