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Zombie Reagan Has My Vote
Imagine how pathetic the GOPe would be without pressure from Reagan supporters, not to mention Trump supporters. Would they even consider fighting the Left? On anything?
There is a lot of opposition to “Zombie Reaganism” by much of the GOPe and some of our brethren in the MAGA movement.
The GOPe folks talk about Reagan a lot but are adamantly opposed to his governing philosophies.
The argument against Reagan principles is always the same. We are “stuck in the ’80s, pushing that tired old formula of tax cuts and deregulation.” Then they produce straw-man arguments against duplicating the exact same policies we implemented in the ’80s. They also complain about “unfettered free markets,” as if that ever happened.
No one is saying we should bring back the exact same policies. (Who wants to invade Grenada? Raise your hands, please.)
It’s the Reagan principles that matter, and they didn’t originate with him. Reagan was guided by principles that pre-dated him and are applicable any time. Before Reagan, you would have to go all the way back to Calvin Coolidge to find another president who understood them. The principles worked then, too.
“Reaganomics” and “Supply-Side Economics” were just names for plain old Classical Economics — a thing despised by most politicians. Classical economics consists of solid principles that existed before Adam Smith wrote them down. Bad things happen when you violate those principles.
And violating the principles is on the to-do list of every Democrat and far too many Republicans.
You know who else appreciated the Reagan principles? Donald Trump. The economy was pretty good under the Donald, wasn’t it? That’s because President Trump implemented that “tired old formula of tax cuts and deregulation.”
The “ditch Reagan” people don’t like those principles. A lot of them are former Bushies who did a subsequent stint at National Review. A common thread among them is a dislike for classical economics, especially sound money and free markets. They don’t get starry-eyed about limited government, either.
More than once, I’ve heard that it’s time to “deemphasize” free markets, as if we hadn’t already done that. Free markets consist of the absence of something – that something being government control of the economy. You can’t deemphasize free markets without increasing emphasis on government control.
The free market de-emphasizers want bigger government. Otherwise, why would they complain about a President who’s been dead for 18 years?
Several political groups — such as National Conservatism, Reform Conservatism, and American Compass — have formed around the deemphasis of free markets and an aversion to limited government. Those groups advocate things that sound very reasonable to the uninitiated but will steer us to increased government coercion.
It’s true that times change, but the right thing to do doesn’t change so quickly.
Published in General
Life expectancies started getting shorter almost the minute Obamacare was implemented. That could be a bullet point for anyone who wants to bring freedom back to health care.
With an increasing number of conservatives denouncing free markets, that is getting less likely all the time.
Yes.
Right, the topic is a little more complicated than I’m making it.
Probably, the esoteric way to say it is that most people in the West suffer more than they need to because we don’t have free interest rates.
My problem is not lack of respect for Reagan and his principles. My problem is that the GOP uses them for money and votes and then doesn’t uphold them. Somehow, “We’re going to shrink the government and this time we MEAN it” has no appeal to me. I don’t trust them.
You described Bush 43. Bush talked free markets but didn’t understand them, much less uphold them.
Trump on the other hand, was more supportive of free markets but rarely talked about it, and the economy performed better under Trump.
The economy performed better under the free-market president who never said so, than under the regulation increaser who talk up free markets.
It’s no wonder so many Republicans are less than supportive of free markets today.
In my experience (1) doctors nowadays only talk to one member of the family, and that member doesn’t change by the patient saying so, but by having a new form filled out, and (2) patients don’t understand or explain things as well as the doctors. Many times, knowing how to care for a family member is crucial, and yet doctors don’t seem to hold family conferences anymore.
That may be more because a doctor has to see a new patient every 8 to 12 minutes or whatever, every business day.
If healthcare could get out from under the government boot, solutions to these problems would start to present themselves. More importantly, they would be allowed.
Well, yes, but the key point is that it doesn’t stop the insurance company or the government from getting the information.
Well, family conferences can be scheduled in, and I expect can billed to the patient.
Or to the patient’s designated taxpayer.
Nothing is under the government boot but the little guy. The big guys and the government are one and the same. There is no conflict between corporate America and the government. If there is, the conflict is over how and by what means they can much more be intertwined than they already are.
Understand what time it is. Small government and tax cuts aren’t a prescription. This is like saying the south seceded the prescription is less regulation and tax cuts. Corporate America and the market they control are the enemy. Rewarding them isn’t the answer.
What is the answer then?
High taxes and regulations are two ways the government harms the economy. Reducing harm is always a good idea, and that’s the point of this post.
Big corporations love high taxes and regulations because they hurt their smaller competitors, and one thing the big guys don’t like is competition. Big Insurance was, and is, all in for Obamacare and they don’t want it repealed.
Many times, I have heard, “free markets aren’t a panacea for everything.” Of course not. Neither is non-smoking. Quitting the cigarettes won’t solve all of your problems, but it is still a good idea.
The economy harms the nation because it is degenerate and evil. The major players are mostly government whores who destroy both fair play and the culture. They should be smashed and much more competition should flourish in every industry.
You can’t draw a straight line back to free markets at this point. We are at least 20 years past that. Too much inflationism. Everything depends on CPI and asset inflation at this *point now. You can’t directly deal with the fact that we did everything wrong in the face of wage deflation and job destruction from automation and globalized labor. The health insurance market is all screwed up. Then probably throw in what Glen is saying.
https://mises.org/wire/were-living-age-capital-consumption
I like most of this post.
I don’t like the objection to government coercion. I think that we could use more coercion in a variety of areas, including immigration and some foreign trade.
I do think that coercion is being used to support many bad policies, but the problem, in my view, is typically the goal and not the coercion itself.
Coercion is improper if there is no law supporting it and that applies to coercive actions in defiance of existing law. When any of that is improper in a moral or constitution sense, legislation is the path to correct it.
Someday somebody is going to say, “My plan is a panacea for everything.” Until then I suppose we’ll have to keep hearing the strawman argument, “It’s not a panacea.”
Crony-Capitalism (which is actually crony-corporatism) is what you are railing against. It isn’t free markets.
Exactly.
It isn’t. So why mindlessly cut their taxes and their regulations?
Because it frees competent competitors to provide better services and products.
It doesn’t. It frees the people who have the game rigged to buy their competitors, their ideas, and more political support. This is what they’ve been doing for decades. This is why every major industry is run by only a few big companies at most. You choose coke or Pepsi and they own everything. Cutting their taxes isn’t going to create more competition or better jobs or lower prices.
Really? What would raising taxes and increasing regulations do?
Also, what would you do?
Well I’d couple regulations with market share. Maybe taxes, too.
The libertarian idea of deregulation is that people can choose to go elsewhere if they dislike how one company does business. Competition.
But the problem we’ve had lately is that companies coalesce under one heading and competition and choice disappear. Dislike Amazon? Tough cookie. The ability to avoid them is shrinking at a rapid rate.
So, if there is no viable competition (based on market share), more regulations. Little to no regulations on businesses that control small market share.
Let try looking at the flip side.
Tax increases always hurt the little guy, even when they’re aimed at the big guy.
Regulations hurt the little guy by raising the cost of everything, and big corporations love them. Incandescent light bulbs were banned because GE lobbied the Bush administration to do that. They wanted to be required to produce a more expensive light bulb, without worrying about competition.
Wonder why major appliances are expensive and break all the time? Energy regulations. President Trump noticed this and proposed making dishwashers great again by relaxing the regulations. The entire appliance industry squealed like a stuck pig and, in the end, the Trump administration made only minor changes.
High taxes and regulations hurt regular people and benefit crony capitalists. Reversing the harm they do simply makes sense.
Adjusting the amount of regulation based on market share is a disincentive to business growth and would be an extremely complicated plan, fraught with opportunities for corruption and game-playing. That complex plan would be administered by a government not known for its competence, let alone its integrity.
There are pros and cons to everything. Does anyone stop and consider the pro/con of high and narrow (large scale efficiency) vs low and wide (accepting inefficiencies in favor of more competition)?
Everything has a trade off.
The issue is how much things get centralized and how much centralized power there is. It’s how much agency and power is robbed from individuals. We have been doing everything wrong since the Soviet Union fell.
IWalton says it better than me and nobody ever challenges him because they can’t.