It’s too easily forgotten that when Ronald Reagan sought the Republican nomination for president in 1980, the view even in his own Party was that the tax cuts he desired were inflationary. Yes, you read that right, Reagan was viewed as radical for not buying into the impressively obtuse theory that “putting money in people’s pockets” caused inflation.
In fairness to the Republicans in a broad sense, the Democrats of that era similarly believed tax cuts an instigator of inflation. That they did set Reagan up for a wondrous smackdown of Jimmy Carter during one of the 1980 presidential debates. Reagan asked the 39th president why it was inflationary to let the people spend their own money, but not so when government was spending our money.
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