Bruce Bartlett: Why the GOP Should Stop Invoking Reaganomics

Bruce Bartlett was a domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and a Treasury official during the George H.W. Bush administration. His latest book is The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform — Why We Need It and What It Will Take.

In their debates, ads and speeches, the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination are vying for the label of most Reagan-esque.

On taxes, "I take the Reagan approach," former senator Rick Santorum said at a recent Florida debate.

On the economy, "under Ronald Reagan, we had . . . the right laws, the right regulators, the right leadership," former House speaker Newt Gingrich said in a debate before his South Carolina primary victory.

Judging from the candidates’ tax proposals, they seem to believe that the most Reagan-like candidate is the one with the biggest tax cut.

But as the person who drafted the 1981 Reagan tax cut, I think Republicans misunderstand the premises upon which Reagan’s economic policies were based and why those policies can’t — and shouldn’t — be replicated today...