Reaganomics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics Reagan gives a televised address from the Oval Office, outlining his plan for Tax Reduction Legislation in July 1981 Reaganomics (a portmanteau of Reagan and economics attributed to Paul Harvey) refers to the economic policies promoted by the U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. The four pillars of Reagan's economic policy were to:
1.Reduce government spending, 2.Reduce income and capital gains marginal tax rates, 3.Reduce government regulation, 4.Control the money supply to reduce inflation.
In his stated intention to increase domestic spending while lowering taxes, Reagan's approach was a departure from his immediate predecessors. Reagan enacted lower marginal tax rates in conjunction with simplified income tax codes and continued deregulation.
William A. Niskanen, one of the architects of Reaganomics, summarizes the policy as "Reagan delivered on each of his four major policy objectives, although not to the extent that he and his supporters had hoped", and notes that the most substantial change was in the tax code, where the top marginal individual income tax rate fell from 70% to 28%, and there was a "major reversal in the tax treatment of business income", with effect of "reducing the tax bias among types of investment but increasing the average effective tax rate on new investment." Roger Porter, another architect of the program, acknowledges that the program was weakened by the many hands that changed the President's calculus, such as Congress. The effect was primarily a change in the composition of tax revenue, towards payroll and new investment, and away from higher earners and capital gains on existing investments, with comparatively small effect on overall tax revenue: the changes "reduced the federal revenue share of GDP from 20.2 percent in fiscal 1981 to 19.2 percent in fiscal 1989," a 1% reduction.
Economic record Reagan's policies are recognized by some (but not all, for example economist James K. Galbraith makes a very different case in his 2009 book "How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too") as bringing about one of the longest peacetime expansions in U.S. history. During the Reagan administration, the American economy went from a GDP growth of -0.3% in 1980 to 4.1% in 1988 (in constant 2005 dollars), which reduced the unemployment rate by 1.6pp, from 7.1% in 1980 to 5.5% in 1988, but with peaks of around 9.5% in 1982 and 1983. A net job increase of about 16 million also occurred (about the rate of population growth). Reagan’s administration is the only one not to have raised the minimum wage. The inflation rate, 13.5% in 1980, fell to 4.1% in 1988, which was achieved by applying high interest rates by the Federal Reserve (peaked at 20% in June 1981). The latter caused a brief recession in 1982: unemployment rose to 9.7% and GDP fell by 1.9%.
Reagan very significantly increased public expenditure, primarily the Department of Defense, which rose (in constant 2000 dollars) from $267.1 billion in 1980 (4.9% of GDP and 22.7% of public expenditure) to $393.1 billion in 1988 (5.8% of GDP and 27.3% of public expenditure); most of those years military spending was about 6% of GDP, exceeding this numbers in 4 different years. All these numbers had not been seen since the end of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War in 1973. In 1981, Reagan significantly reduced the maximum tax rate, which affected the very wealthy, and lowered the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 50%; in 1986 he further reduced the rate to 28%. As a result of all this, the budget deficit and federal debt increased considerably: debt grew from 33.3% of GDP in 1980 to 51.9% at the end of 1988 and the deficit increased from 2.7% in 1980 to more than double in 1983, when it reached 6%; in 1984, 1985 and 1986 it was around 5%. In order to cover new federal budget deficits, the United States borrowed heavily both domestically and abroad, raising the national debt from $700 billion to $3 trillion, and the United States moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor nation. Reagan described the new debt as the "greatest disappointment" of his presidency.
The number of Americans below the poverty level increased from 29.272 million in 1980 to 31.745 million in 1988, which means that, as a percentage of the total population, it remained almost stationary, from 12.95% in 1980 to 13% in 1988. The poverty level for people under the age of 18 increased from 11.543 million in 1980 (18.3% of all child population) to 12.455 (19.5%) in 1988. In addition, the situation of low income groups was affected by the reduction of social spending. Inequality also increased. The share of total income going to the 5% highest-income households grew from 16.5% in 1980 to 18.3% in 1988 and the share of the highest fifth increased from 44.1% to 46.3% in same years. In contrast, the share of total income of the lowest fifth fell from 4.2% in 1980 to 3.8% in 1988 and the second poorest fifth from 10.2% to 9.6%.