[tag]Reagan[/tag] deification in GOP circles notwithstanding, I think [tag]John McCain[/tag] engaged in some historical revisionism yesterday at a speech to the Economic Club of New York.
Huge federal budget deficits are threatening the economic future for younger Americans and destabilizing the country on the international stage, according to McCain. “No security strategy can succeed without a firm economic foundation,” he said. “Just as we must anticipate and confront outside threats using all instruments of our national power, we must face the very real threats emanating from home that endanger our prosperity.”
[tag]McCain[/tag] cast his call for a renewal of fiscal conservatism through the historical lens of former president [tag]Ronald Reagan[/tag], whom he repeatedly singled out for praise in [yesterday’s] address. He lauded Reagan for “rededicat[ing] our national energies to the principles of personal, political and economic freedom” — tenets, McCain said, that have largely been lost in today’s politics.
I realize the 1980s were a couple of decades ago — and it’s possible McCain looks back at the era through rose-colored glasses — but if Reagan is his model for fiscal discipline, I have a couple of follow-up questions.
It was Reagan, after all, who created the biggest [tag]deficits[/tag] in American history (at least until the current Oval Office occupant came along). For that matter, Reagan strongly embraced the ever-popular “[tag]magic asterisks[/tag],” in which the president would cut taxes without comparable spending cuts, but would balance the budget with information that was yet “to be provided.” And while we’re at it, one might also want to remember that Reagan increased the size of the federal government and raised [tag]taxes[/tag] a few times to stop his deficits from spiraling out of control.
If McCain believes Reagan is the ideal for 21st-century Republicans to follow, maybe the senator could explain which parts of the former president’s fiscal agenda he’d like to emulate.