Richard K. Armey: “as a young professor, I remember the despair that my profession of economics had in the 1970s dealing with the malaise…”

“as a young professor, I remember the despair that my profession of economics had in the 1970s dealing with the malaise of that decade, the stagflation, the hopelessness, and the helplessness of the economy that caused the American people to turn to Ronald Reagan when we just did not seem to be able to get the economy to move. Ronald Reagan, God bless his heart, broke the back of inflation, and by cutting taxes and reducing government regulation on the economy, he got this economy into 2 decades now of growth that have never been paralleled in the history of the economy. But here is the fact, here is the fact: because Ronald Reagan cut taxes, enabled the economy to grow, the fact is the American people doubled the amount of money they sent to Washington in the decade of the 1980s. That is a fact. It happened. Because we had better jobs, we had a growing economy, we spent more money. What did Washington do? Washington spent $1.56 for every increased dollar we sent to Washington, not Ronald Reagan. This Congress spent that money year after year after year. Not only did they spend all of that, but they spent every surplus dime of payroll taxes that decent men and women in this country paid expecting it to go to mom and dad's Social Security. The Democrat Congresses wasted those Social Security surpluses year after year after year on every risky spending scheme they could trump up. That went on until 1993.”