kim@emory.UUCP (Kim Wallen {Psychology}) (10/31/84)
Last night Henry Aaron from the Brookings institute commented on the Macneil-Lehrer report on the prospect of reducing the deficit through budget cutting. He pointed out that the projected 1989 deficit is $264 billion. If Reagan refuses to cut defense, keeps his promise not to cut Social Security and Medicare/caid, and keeps up interest payments on the deficit than there will be $241 billion left in the budget to cut. Aaron pointed out that even if the rest of the government was done away with there would still be a deficit. Aaron had another interesting point concerning the recovery. He said that although there has been a recovery there has been no increase in productivity (a pivotal part of reaganomics) and the $92 billion in investment has come almost completely from foreign investment. Isn't anyone out there concerned that Reagan has managed a $175 Billion deficit and a $130 billion trade deficit all in a single year. How is Reagan going to trun this around? (and don't say growth, remember under Reagonomics we were supposed to grow so fast that the budget would balance by 1984, a miss by $175 billion isn't even close). Kim Wallen Psychology Dept. Emory University emory!kim