There are two interesting responses to this, if not three. One is that several of Kennedy's former advisers supported the Reagan tax cuts, notably Walter Heller. Another is that the cuts were modeled in certain ways on the Kennedy cuts, especially those elements directed at capital investment. Finally, when he ran for reelection in 1984 many of Reagan's ads emphasized how his tax cuts put money in peoples' hands that they could spend. Sure, there was a lot of supply-side rhetoric, but the bottom line was also to realize that there was plenty of demand side in there as well. Barkley Rosser On Fri, 5 Jun 1998 14:15:44 -0400 Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> michael wrote:
>
> >By the way, Reagan was perhaps the most Keynesian president we have ever had.
>
> Supply siders would have your head for this! They said that their tax cuts
> were supposed to alter incentives, not pump up aggregate demand. Of course,
> it did pump up aggregate demand, and tax changes don't really seem to have
> much effect on economic behavior, but still, in the interests of doctrinal
> purity, the essential distinctions must be preserved!
>
> Doug
>
>
>
-- Rosser Jr, John Barkley rosserjb at jmu.edu