The argument is simple math; it may be wrong for some reason but I don't see how.

He started amnesty for illegals.

Wait, you consider this a bad thing? What a fucking hypocrite you are, muirgeo. Your professed concern for income inequality is a complete joke now that you have admitted you really only care about people lucky enough to be born in America.

And for the record, you still have not done your econ homework, muirgeo. Until you understand what Hayek means by central planning, you have no room to talk about anything resembling the subject.

Productivity increased 70% and individual and family work hours went up significantly to compensate.

http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/tabfig/01/...

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/26/077.html

And Reagan, yeah he was a disaster. And a criminal selling arms illegally to the Iranians. And he massively/ regressively increased social security taxes. He started amnesty for illegals. He set us back on the path to oil dependency. The economy we are seeing now is pretty much the long term results of his vodoo economics.

http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

Median Income in 1980 (2006 dollars): $41,258
Median Income in 2006: $48,201

17% growth. . .what a disaster since Reagan.

Pithy yes, but no more so than your own reply. My data is certainly more meaningful for the well being of the 'rest of us' than your data.

We’ll have to wait years to see if this is accurate. But whatever the number is, it will also represent, in stunning red ink, the cost to society of financiers who are shortsighted and greedy and regulators who don’t regulate. “

From;

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/business/13gr...

So what explains the current market failure? Well at least the total failure that was preempted by government intervention. Taxes have been cut and so have regulations. How does the libertarian keep his ideology alive in such a hostile environment?

I know the likely answer is we haven't really cut taxes and regulation enough. But the practical question begs an answer. Every time we seem to take even baby steps toward liberaltopia we get our asses kicked. So what gives?

“I'm simply a classical liberal who acknowledges that we all do better individually as well as a group (insofar as “a group” even matters) when we operate, work and live under less tax burden.”

Well as I understand you got your wish and the marginal tax rates have successively been cut since Reagan. So how's that working out for the economy? Well, I mean for the other 99.9% of us?

http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/wp-content/...

I am afraid that the author could be confused about the difference between people who think that all tax cuts are bad for the economy (these people are probably few and, if they exist, in need of mental help) and people who think that tax cuts are a bad idea when government debt is ridiculously high and growing faster than ever, our infrastructure is in dire need of maintenance, and fee-based services (such as publicly-provided higher education) are becoming more expensive.

Now I take it the financing aspect (borrowing so extensively from future revenues) is problematic if the projected gains are very far in the future. So running massive deficits today because taxes are at 1% is probably too theoretical to be workable.

Nevertheless at a minimum this line of argument does provide medium/long-term support, besides the usual short-term argument, that cutting taxes can be good even without immediate spending reductions.

Practically speaking, the problem is that an experiment or comparison along these lines takes a very long time to complete (maybe 50 years or more), because the primary mechanism is the compounding effect of growth. So it is hard to get a scientifically rigorous picture of the situation.

From; The end of neo-liberalism?

By Joseph E. Stiglitz

http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?Arti...

After all, it's about individuals minding their own business and providing for the welfare and happiness of their families.

The huge burdens placed on our government budgets are self-inflicted by those people…just as many of the high costs we have to endure are rooted in the same source.

Arsonists make poor fire fighters.