Exit Reaganomics?

Over the course of this year, the centenary of William F. Buckley’s birth, we will republish an article by him weekly. This week’s column from 1982 excoriated the Dole tax plan and President Reagan’s apparent backtracking on his campaign promises.

The collapse of Reaganomics (as the event is accurately being described) is testimony to a failure of both nerve and understanding. Sen. Robert Dole, R-Kan., the chairman of the Finance Committee, who mobilized all eleven Republican senators to vote for the highest single peacetime tax increase in U.S. history (in round figures, $100 billion), is suddenly being greeted as a hero — by the Democrats. And with good reason.