John McCain is a Soldier of Reaganomics

John McCain’s economic advisor, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, was on Wednesday’s Marketplace discussing the senator’s economic strategy for the country. In the interview, Holtz-Eakin said this of McCain:

He is a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution. He saw President Reagan cut taxes within the context of budget discipline and controls on spending.

He went on to say that McCain had seen the positive effects of Reagan’s policies of lower taxes on the economy and that the senator supported such actions.

Excuse me? Are we really still bringing up Reagonomics? The trickle-down economics championed by the Reagan administration is a contentious issue and its effects on the general populace, like that of all economic matters, is debatable. One thing that isn’t debatable, however, is the size of the federal debt. To put it quite frankly: Republicans want to cut taxes and spend like there’s no tomorrow. Ideally such a policy should be a boon to the economy and yet there’s no clear evidence for that being the case. What such strategies do affect are programs like Social Security; the money for tax cuts has to come from somewhere and more often than not it is by marginalizing other Federal programs. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t particularly care for Social Security but the fact of the matter is I pay into it and I want to get my money’s worth. As it stands, I may never see the 6% of my pay that goes toward the troubled fund.