Poll after poll show that the economy is the number one concern of a large majority of the American people. One recent poll found that only 14% of Americans feel they are better off than they were when President Biden took office.Yet despite the potential advantage Republicans could have running a campaign based on the economy, Republican candidates have failed to focus on a strong economic recovery message.Under Biden’s economy, Americans face the same economic challenges that they did when Ronald Reagan was running for election in 1980. Inflation was soaring, with food and gas prices rising at record rates. Interest rates were up, real wages were down, and economic growth was stagnant. Federal taxes were much too high, government spending was rising, and federal regulations were strangling the economy.The 1980 Republican platform declared that nothing was more important than economic growth, and fully endorsed the Reagan economic recovery program. The plan reduced tax rates across the board for all individuals and businesses, cut government spending, and reduced federal regulations, including regulations that were curbing energy production.Running on his plan to get the economy moving again, Reagan won in a landslide, winning 44 states, and helping Republicans win 12 Senate seats and control of the Senate for the first time in 25 years, and 34 seats in the House.The Reagan economic recovery program worked, with real GDP growth exceeding 7% and 8% in 1983 and 1984, and averaging nearly 5% a year through 1988. Inflation dropped, and nearly 20 million new jobs were created. Business investment soared, and real incomes grew at every level.The Reagan tax cuts were modeled after the Kennedy tax cuts of the 1960s, another example of lower tax rates and spending boosting economic growth. President Kennedy was elected on a pledge to get the economy moving again, and his plan reduced personal and business tax rates across the board and curbed government spending. Enacted in 1964, the Kennedy plan set off an economic boom, with real GDP averaging more than 5% a year and the jobless rate falling to 3.4%A Republican economic message of lower taxes and reduced spending would be a clear contrast to the Democratic message of higher taxes and more spending. Republicans at every level should be running on the Reagan-Kennedy plan, which ushered in eras of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity for all American.
Republicans Would Be Wise To Start Pushing Economic Recovery
December 01, 2023
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