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1980, the debt had grown only to $900 billion.
But back in 1966, and long before that, Sen. Byrd Sr. had been shouting from the Washington rooftops about the irresponsibility of the government’s red ink spending. He solemnly warned us that the nation was like a family, and “you know what happens when a family continues to live beyond its means — bankruptcy!”
His philosophical disciples, the younger Byrd, Godwin and Smith, gravely nodded assent. It’s probably a mercy the older Byni isn’t around today to witness Uncle Sam’s fiscal fix.
And so how is it that these three princes of the Old Dominion’s conservative frith have made this pilgrimage to Washington? Have they clasped to their bosoms the largest national debt in the history of the world? Have they been snookered by the Old Showman’s snake oil sales pitch?
Surely they must know that the decline in inflation for which Mr. Reagan claims credit is due more to the recession, the (reluctant) restraint of the Middle East oil sheiks and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul A. Volcker, than to any initiative taken by the administration.
Surely, also, they must be aware that the “supply side” economic theory has been a laughter. (The pun is intended.) The recovery, if that is what we have, has been purchased with that mountainous tide of red ink which, under Mr. Reagan’s stewardship, has nearly doubled the size of the national debt in three short years. The supply side theory, correctly and truthfully Vi labelled “voodoo economics” by than-preaidential can- y didate George Bush four years ago, had little, if anything, to do with it. "
Indeed, Mr. Reagan, the old New Dealer, has done exactly what his one-time idol, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and FDR’s successors did when they got into economic and political trouble. It’s a trick called “spend and spend, borrow and borrow, elect and elect,”
With his ineffable crinkly grin, Mr. Reagan has somehow succeeded in wrapping the liberal New Economics of John Maynard Keynes in a conservative cloak of many colors, and Messers Byrd, Godwin and Smith, incredibly, have bought the package, $1.7 trillion debt and all.
The only thing that remains now, it seems, is for the Virginia Republican elephant to appear wearing a pince-nez, smiling a toothy smile and sporting a cigarette holder clasped, as they say, at a jaunty angle.
“Thanks” From Hackleys
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