Elon, The Washington GOP Hardly Heard Ye—Here’s Why (Part 2)

To reprise from Part 1, as of 1980 the rolling 10-year and 20-year real GDP growth rates stood at 3.2% per annum and 3.5% per annum, respectively. Owing to a slight boost from the good parts of Reaganomics—-sweeping deregulation, tax rate cuts and sound money, which were partially off-set by the long-term ills owing to the abandonment of balanced budgets—the respective moving averages rose a tad to 3.5% and 3.6% per year by 1988, respectively.

Still, these rounding error gains in the moving averages of growth should be a reminder that whatever its philosophical virtues—and they were considerable—Reaganomics did not usher in a decisive or even measurable break from prior trends. That is to say, 1960 to 1980 was pretty much the heyday of Keynesian economics in Washington and the 20-year moving average of growth at its end point in 1980 was 3.5%.