In the wake of all the glowing Reagan tributes, especially the hopes of Republicans to cloak Bush in Reagan's tax-reducing-great-man mantle, I want to point out Paul Krugman's latest op-ed.
Paul, a Princeton economist, points out that Reagan was responsible enough to recognize when taxes needed to be raised, doing so twice in his eight years: the 1982 rollback of corporate tax cuts from 1981 to correct for grossly incorrect revenue estimates, and the payroll tax increase of 1983 to save Social Security. George W. Bush, when faced with similarly incorrect revenue estimates, decides to cut taxes more, and to cut Social Security benefits to help pay for it. He is not the Great Communicator, he isn't even a fiscally conservative mumbler. George W. Bush is Maxwell, hammering away at the U.S. economy and the safety of the world.
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