Remember the upheaval Scott Walker caused in Wisconsin not too long ago over unions, regulations and taxes? You will not hear so much about the earth shattering success of Walker in the media as he turns around that state’s economy.
Economics is as much about emotion as it is math these days. There are roughly two schools of thought when it comes to economics. These schools can be represented by two presidents, President Barak Obama and President Ronald Reagan.
We know where to find President Obama and we are seeing his vision of the economy being fulfilled with the official unemployment rate of 6.7% and the national debt more than doubling to $17.33 trillion during his tenure.
Obama’s economic view is the view that government is the answer and that government spending will cause the economy to recover. He will soon give the state of the Union speech that will reportedly focus on income inequality. The interesting thing is that his economic viewpoint has increased the gap of income inequality greatly since taking office.
The Obama economic theory and practice leads some of the worst economies currently on planet earth, North Korea and Cuba. They believe in income equality, everyone is poor and that is equal.
Contrast this with the Reagan era. A rapid recovery from the bad economic policies of Nixon, Ford and worst of all, Jimmy Carter. Under President Ronald Reagan the federal government got out of the way. By the time he ran for his second term, “it was morning in America again.”
Unlike the falsely revered Franklin Roosevelt, whose economic theory exacerbated and unnecessarily protracted the depression, Reagan enacted policies and reforms that reduced government and allowed businesses to grow and prosper.
Where can we find the conservative Reagan view of economics in action today?
In a very unlikely place, Wisconsin.
Similar to President Reagan who was the governor of California, a progressive stronghold that endured a stagnant economy brought about by Obama like regulations and taxes, Scott Walker was elected in a left leaning state that had grown weary of the loss of economic freedom and oppressive, bloated state government.
Governor Walker has created waves in Wisconsin by being unabashedly conservative. He even survived a recall election in the middle of the changes that are now giving the state something it has not seen in decades, a surplus.
The state of Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is “rapidly falling” and the government’s budget ended the year with a $912 million surplus. Now, Scott Walker is proposing giving money back in the form of tax cuts to the people, who own it in the first place.
Understand, what Gov Walker has done took grit and determination, bringing the wrath of progressives from across the country.
Walker is proposing a $504 million property and income tax cut plan as a means to return some of the surplus money to the people of Wisconsin. Some Democrats and Republicans are already criticizing the plan and are calling for changes.
“The budget surplus is really your money,” Walker recently said at a meeting of the Wisconsin Grocers Association. “You earned it.”
However, some lawmakers are concerned that Walker’s tax cut plan would increase the state’s projected budget shortfall from $700 million to $800,000 million. The Republican governor argues the estimates don’t take into account any revenue growth, which he says will cover the difference.
The unemployment rate in Wisconsin dropped to 6.2 percent in December and has been dropping steadily since 2011.
The same thing can happen in other states. States that embrace freedom of opportunity and do not look to government as the solution to most things are seeing their economies improve. Most of the big cities and costal states that shun freedom in favor of government doing all things continue to languish in the never ending recession.
Where is Ronald Reagan? A better question is, where is that shining city on a hill? It can be found among a people whose God is the Lord, a people that seek liberty over having a nanny take care of them.
