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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

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Aside from your complaint about immigration amnesty, how was Reagan not a right-winger?

Reagan's domestic policies were, courtesy of wikiepdia:

Reduce marginal tax rates on income from labor and capital.

Reduce regulation.

Tighten the money supply to reduce inflation.

Reduce the growth of government spending.

These need to be measured from where the US was in 1980. Marginal tax rates in 1980 were 43% on income over $40k. That could be about $120k now. I would guess that there are people who want to raise taxes that high, but they are no centrists. Income over $20k ($60k) in modern dollars was taxed at 24%.

I don't think tightening the money supply when inflation is at 13% is a right wing idea.

Federal spending under Reagan was about 22% of GDP. This is more then then pre-COVID rate under Trump, but 2.5% less than Biden. In contrast, Obama spent just over 20%.

It is hard to measure regulations.

On foreign policy, Reagan does not seem that right wing, compared to Biden, unless you count being against communism as "right wing."

In hindsight, Reagan looks very centrist. What about him makes you think him more right-wing than Obama? He might have been more right-wing than Nixon (SSI. affirmative action, EPA, clean water act), I suppose. Overall, Nixon looks to the left of Obama on that measure. Obama was very centrist.