Pros And Cons Of Gov Ernment

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According to President Ronald Reagan, the 40th U.S. President (1981-1989), the gov-ernment should be highly accountable to its citizens, particularly when it comes to the spending of tax dollars. Reagan clearly expresses a critical perspective towards the role of the United States government in that excessive spending has been a significant problem. Reagan upholds a perspective of a classical liberalist in the way he criticizes the nature of the welfare state – one that is flawed when citizens lack incentive to work hard in achieving self-sufficiency and rely heavily on government support. That is, Reagan openly states a concern regarding fiscal and monetary policies where the government is spending possibly more than …show more content…

The source perspective promotes works for the interests of the public because it embraces supply-side economic theory which seeks to limit and cut government spending on the creation of jobs for the economy. Overall, it seems that in a welfare state, many are benefited. However, if one were to analyze this system, one would realize that such economic system has high potential to experience deficits. For instance, Reagan is very appreciated by conservatives and loved by big business throughout his presidency and that is because once he came into office January of 1981, the top tax rate was 70%, but when he left office in 1989, the top tax rate dropped to only 28% revealing a lack of revenue coming into the federal government. Yet Reagan was forced to raise taxes eleven times throughout his time in office. This displayed when he signed the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. Thus leading to a serious amount of debt. The U.S ended up tripling their National Debt, cutting the tax for the wealth, leaving the government with less money to spend. When Reagan came into office the nation debt was $900 billion, by the tim he left the national debt had tripled to 2.8 trillion. He can also be very criticized for his attack on Unions and the Middle Class - The Republican war on unions and the middle class has been heating up in states like Wisconsin and Ohio, that has been an on going issue. Unions are formed to give a united voice to the workers in an attempt to create equality and collective security between the corporations and their employees. For example, on August 3rd, 1981, PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization) went on strike in an effort to get better pay and safer working conditions. Two days later, taking the side of business, Ronald Reagan fired 11,345 workers for not returning to work. With these examples, one can see how through