Bob has deciphered and understood every individual American Administration tax policy along with many of their varying ramifications for both American Industry as well as general population income groups since the Reagan 1 in 1980.
Regarding the Inception of Supply-Side Economics
Otherwise Known as ‘Trickle Down Theory,’ Supply Side Economics, Laffer Economics, or Reagonomics, Bob began to understand the general nature of this economic theory within 3 weeks after it was announced in early 1981, immediately after Ronald Reagan's Inauguration, and saw disaster coming from the beginning in the form of the huge deficits that ensued. These deficits went from 930 Billion USD when Ronald Reagan succeeded Jimmy Carter in office to $2.6 Trillion when he left office in 1988, coming close to tripling the total American deficit in whole numbers. Although these huge deficits allegedly helped ‘run the Soviets back into a corner’ regarding the latter's Defense Spending at the time, and temporarily spurred the American economy, they also came close to crashing the Stock Market on 19 October 1987, and set a dangerous precedent for future Administrations.
Direct Communications with the US Deputy Secretary of the Treasury
As it turned out, in the period of roughly l986-88 or so, Bob had become a strong advocate of Flat Tax Theory, and attempted to reach his friend M. Peter McPherson on one of the two nights of the Market's largest losses. The first night the market lost 6% of its value, and the second, Friiday, 16 October, it lost another 12%, and there was palpable fear of a 'free fall.'
To my surprise, the Treasury Department Operator patched my call through to Pete's home around 11 PM Washington time, and how or why I don't know, but he answered the call.
I apprised him that it was the Administration's Supply Side Economics policies that had resulted in the evening's events, and advocated 'your boss' (President Reagan) going on national television to annouce movement 'toward, or all the way to, a Flat Tax Structure.'
It may be only more recently in reading Greenspan's extremely well written and accurate book 'The Age of Turbulence' that I realized that Jim Baker, then Secretary of the Treasury after swapping with Donald Reagan for White House Chief of Staff, wasn't even in town. The man I spent 10-15 or 20 minutes on the line with that financially precipitous night was largely 'home alone.'
I later sent Pete a flock of Atlanta Journal editorian page cartoons having to do with the disaster and Reagan's continuing Supply Side policies, and was never able to make contact with him again. Once back in the DC area, I found him more or less 'floating between Treasury and Wall Street,' I should imagine attempting to find 'whatever "glue" he could find, wherever he could find it, under instructions from his boss Jim Baker, to 'seal the pot.'
Huge Increase of the American Deficits
In the process of subsequent Republican Administrations after Reagan, the US deficits increased, respectively, under George Herbert Walker Bush, to $4.1 Trillion, and later, under the current President, George W Bush, to a current $8.8 Trillion. Under Bill Clinton, the 40th President, the deficits increased from $4.1 Trillion, as inherited from ‘W’s’ father, to only $5.7 Trillion, and the Clinton Administration rendered its last three budgetary years as surpluses.
Splitting of the Economic Classes During the Reagan Years
From perhaps from the middle of Reagan 1 to the present, Bob has also understood the negative impact on American society through the widening division between the upper and lower classes, along with a narrowing of the middle class. This negative impact has been further exacerbated by the imprisoning of varying drug offenders, inclusive of minor offenders, giving the United States the dubious distinction of having the largest percentage of its population incarcerated of all the Western developed nations.
Current George W Bush Economic Policies
George W Bush has, largely through his huge 10 year tax cuts and payment for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, taken the US Deficits to a current $8.8 Trillion, more than a Trillion of which is owned by the The People’s Republic of China alone. Straddled with these huge overall deficits, trade debt and personal financial debt, American society has continued to split even further along economic lines, the gap between rich and poor growing wider and wider, and the middle class growing narrower and narrower. This horrible economic and social condition in the United States is threatened to be even further exacerbated by a combination of the oncoming burden of the retirement of the Baby Boomers, as well as of the needs for health and disability care of the large lot of wounded and disabled veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
State of Current US Tax Policies and Our Economy in 2021
Needless to say, the continuing US government spending along with bad tax policies under presidents Bush Jr., Obama and Trump have resulted in now almost untenable deficits, with less and less of the 'non-deficit pie' available for our legitiate national priorities. It is my sensing that we have only perhaps 10 years to turn things around before said 'turning' will be impossible, actually perhaps more than somewhat similar to the issues of global warming. Sadly, the federal deficit is now 17.9% of our GDP,with the possibilities that we may have to finally begin making cuts in either healthcare, defense or both.Allowing that there should be no talk of artificially "zeroing out" our deficits, my thoughts are to begin committing a minimum of $50B per each national budgegt year toward the reduction of the deficit, and Elon Musk's notion of the use of and/or converting over to Bitcoin for our currency might actully have some merit. In the end, Bitcoin could actually prove to be our monetary salvation.
In the USA, a continuing smaller % of the population owns a larger and larger % of our national income, which has also become exacerbated under Donald Trump. Therefore, overall in the USA, there is a shifting monetary base from the federal government into the pockets of our increasing numbers of private sector billionaires.
