In reading the Saturday letter about Ronald Reagan, “Legacy includes things that worked,” it appears that the writer is doing a little “reshaping” of his own.
When Reagan took office in January of 1981, unemployment was at 7.5 percent. After installing his tax cuts, unemployment continued up to a high of 10.8 percent in December of 1982, according to the Department of Labor. By my math, that’s 23 months into his presidency, not 12. By election time in 1984, it had dropped back down to 7.2 percent, and when he left office in January 1989, it was at 5.4 percent. How did it drop? In many peoples’ opinion, it was because of the largest peacetime military buildup in U.S. history (a stimulus bill?). However, this went to his defense industry buddies that got him elected.
His massive spending to Wall Street, along with his massive tax increases (11 in all) mostly on the middle class (his Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act in 1982 repealed most of his tax cuts to all except the very rich and was the second largest tax increase in U.S. history), has made him the darling of the powerful and well-connected in this country.
His economic policies left us with a debt that after 30 years, we are still trying to pay off. Apparently, the trickle down economic “theory” didn’t work.
Tom Griffin
Everett
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