Reaganomics Recycled

The New Trickle-Down and Its Original Blueprint

I. Introduction

Every few decades, a group of wealthy men stands in front of the country and insists that if we just hand them more money and power, it will be good for everyone. The packaging changes, the slogans shift, and the language is updated for modern sensibilities, but the formula stays the same. Sell the public on growth, freedom, and prosperity. Use fear of decline to justify radical change. And when the dust settles, the wealth is even more concentrated than before.

The “Big Beautiful Bill” is not a new idea. It is the latest iteration of a model launched in the early 1980s. Back then it was called Reaganomics. Today it is being pitched again, backed by many of the same funders, institutions, and rhetorical tricks. If we want to understand where this bill is heading, we need to understand what happened the first time they ran this play.

II. What Was Reaganomics?

Reaganomics was the name given to Ronald Reagan’s economic policy package in the early 1980s. It was built on four pillars: cutting taxes on the wealthy and corporations, slashing social spending, deregulating major industries, and massively increasing military spending. The central claim was that reducing the tax burden on investors and businesses would unleash growth, create jobs, and eventually raise tax revenues through sheer economic expansion.

This was not a fringe idea. It was formalized into what became known as supply-side economics, promoted with charts like the Laffer Curve and slogans like “a rising tide lifts all boats.” The promise was simple: cut taxes now, stimulate investment, and the benefits would trickle down to everyone else.

At the time, the country was coming off a decade of high inflation and economic stagnation. Traditional Keynesian tools were struggling. Reagan’s message was bold, clear, and easy to market. It positioned government as the problem and private enterprise as the solution.

III. The Architects and the Messaging Machine

The faces of Reaganomics were familiar. Reagan delivered the speeches. Jack Kemp, a congressman and former NFL quarterback, sold the ideas on Capitol Hill. Arthur Laffer provided the academic justification with his now-famous curve suggesting that tax cuts could actually increase revenue. Jude Wanniski, a Wall Street Journal editorial writer, popularized the ideas with relentless repetition in the press. And David Stockman, Reagan’s young budget director, tried to implement it all through federal policy.

But behind the scenes, an even more important force was at work: the funding and coordination of a new kind of political machinery. Think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute pumped out policy briefs and press releases. Conservative billionaires and industrialists bankrolled the campaigns. Joseph Coors funded the launch of Heritage. Richard Mellon Scaife and the Koch brothers poured money into media, legal, and academic arms of the movement. The Olin and Bradley foundations subsidized economics departments and legal scholars who would reinforce the policy framework.

This was not just a political strategy. It was a full-spectrum messaging operation. Op-eds, TV pundits, syndicated columnists, and newly-minted academics all echoed the same points. Tax cuts were framed as moral. Regulations were framed as tyrannical. Public spending was rebranded as theft. And any critics were painted as out-of-touch elitists or dangerous socialists.

IV. What Actually Happened

The theory promised balanced budgets and broad prosperity. The reality was more complicated.

Reagan’s tax cuts, especially the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, slashed the top marginal income tax rate from 70 percent to 50 percent. Corporate taxes were also reduced. But instead of being offset by spending cuts, Reagan simultaneously ramped up military spending. Social programs like housing assistance and food support were cut, but the biggest government expenses—Social Security, Medicare, and defense—were left largely intact or expanded. The result was a ballooning deficit.

The economy entered a deep recession starting in 1981, driven in part by the Federal Reserve’s aggressive effort to fight inflation through extremely high interest rates. Unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent in November 1982. It was the highest jobless rate since the Great Depression, though in terms of GDP decline, the downturn was not as steep as the 1973–75 recession. By early 1983, a recovery was underway, but it came at a high cost for working-class Americans.

The wealthiest Americans saw enormous gains. The stock market surged. Executive compensation began its long climb into the stratosphere. Meanwhile, wages for the working class stagnated. The idea that tax cuts would "pay for themselves" fell apart. David Stockman, one of the policy’s main engineers, eventually admitted in an interview with The Atlantic that the numbers never worked. He called it a Trojan horse for shrinking government and said the supply-side justification was always more about politics than math.

Still, the narrative stuck. Reagan was re-elected in a landslide in 1984, and the supply-side model became Republican economic doctrine for decades.

V. Heritage 2.0: The Big Beautiful Bill

The Heritage Foundation has not faded into the background since the Reagan era. It has evolved into one of the most powerful conservative policy engines in the country. In the lead-up to the 2025 election cycle, Heritage released a detailed blueprint called Project 2025, outlining an aggressive plan to reshape the federal government. Its economic priorities look familiar: lower taxes for corporations and the wealthy, mass deregulation, cuts to federal programs, and a consolidation of executive power.

The “Big Beautiful Bill,” as it is now being framed by its supporters, is not just a tax or spending plan. It is the economic implementation of that broader strategy. Like Reaganomics before it, it promises growth through simplification, prosperity through freedom, and national strength through private capital. It uses patriotic language and economic fear to push sweeping structural changes that primarily benefit the top tier of wealth holders.

What is different this time is the marketing. Reaganomics was pitched with optimism and polish. The current movement is more combative. It leans into culture war rhetoric and blames economic stagnation on immigrants, environmental policy, and federal overreach. But the core economic strategy is unchanged: shift money and power upward, promise long-term growth, and dismantle the safety nets that make poverty survivable for everyone else.

Heritage is again supplying the intellectual cover and institutional muscle. It has trained thousands of operatives for future agency roles, built relationships with political influencers, and coordinated media output to normalize ideas that were once considered fringe. The blueprint is public, and it is being followed.

VI. The Myth of the Productive Billionaire

Central to both Reaganomics and its modern reboot is the idea that the ultra-wealthy are not just successful, but economically essential. The logic is simple: wealthy individuals create jobs, drive innovation, and generate prosperity. Therefore, any policy that favors them is framed as an investment in the broader economy.

This idea has proven powerful but largely unsupported by evidence. During the Reagan years, tax cuts for the wealthy were supposed to increase investment and wages. What followed instead was a shift toward stock buybacks, financial speculation, and executive compensation growth. Wealth concentrated at the top, but little of it trickled down.

The same narrative is now being recycled. Proponents of the Big Beautiful Bill argue that unleashing billionaires and major corporations from taxes and regulation will restore economic growth. But again, the benefits are indirect and vague. There is no accountability for whether the gains are reinvested in wages, infrastructure, or jobs. In practice, wealth protection tends to lead to more wealth hoarding, not public benefit.

This myth works because it flatters power. It tells voters that prosperity will return if they stop “punishing success.” It tells the rich that their privilege is virtuous. And it reframes economic policy as a moral choice between freedom and coercion, rather than a contest of competing priorities. In both eras, the myth of the productive billionaire served to justify a massive transfer of wealth upwards while obscuring the cost.

VII. What Has Changed and What Has Not

The conditions surrounding the Big Beautiful Bill are different from those in the 1980s, but the structural strategy remains the same.

Inflation is lower than it was in the Reagan era. The Cold War is over. Technology, finance, and logistics have created new forms of economic dominance that did not exist in the early eighties. The modern billionaire class is more international, more diversified, and more insulated from public accountability. Labor unions are weaker. Public trust in government and media has eroded. Attention spans are shorter, and disinformation spreads faster.

But the economic playbook has not evolved much. The policy remains centered on tax cuts, deregulation, and reduced government oversight. The arguments are almost identical: growth will solve everything, wealth will find its way down the chain, and government is the problem. The main difference is delivery. Where Reaganomics relied on white papers and television, today’s campaign is distributed through social media algorithms, influencer networks, and tailored outrage.

Even the funding structure remains familiar. The same legacy think tanks and family foundations continue to bankroll the effort. Heritage still writes the playbook. The Koch network still funds the ideological infrastructure. And wealthy donors still shape which ideas reach the public.

What has changed is the level of public exhaustion. People are less optimistic and more desperate. That makes them easier to sell on urgency and more willing to accept sweeping changes without understanding the consequences. The repetition of history is not exact, but the trajectory is recognizable.

VIII. What This Strategy Achieves

Despite its packaging, this economic strategy has never been about widespread prosperity or curbing waste and inefficiencies. It is not designed to lift the bottom or cut pork. It is designed to protect the top.

In both the Reagan era and today, the core objective is to consolidate economic and legal dominance. By cutting taxes at the top, shifting the burden to labor and consumption, and deregulating key industries, the structure favors those who already hold assets. The resulting deficits then become a justification for cutting public services, further weakening collective power.

The strategy also creates legal asymmetry. Wealthy individuals and corporations gain more tools to avoid taxes, influence policy, and shape enforcement priorities. At the same time, ordinary people are given fewer mechanisms to push back. Consumer protections, labor rights, and public services are framed as wasteful or intrusive. Once stripped away, those protections rarely return.

This is not about economic growth. It is about reducing the state’s capacity to regulate private capital. It shrinks the public sphere while expanding private control over essential goods—housing, education, health care, infrastructure, and information. The result is a society where survival depends less on civic rights and more on your proximity to wealth.

The appeal of this model is its simplicity. It allows a small group of people to legally extract more from the system without needing to suppress dissent directly. The conditions of inequality become self-reinforcing. And because the laws are passed through democratic channels, the damage is coded as legitimacy.

IX. Conclusion

Reaganomics did not fail in the way most people think. It succeeded at reshaping the economy to benefit those who already held wealth and influence. The promises of growth and shared prosperity gave it cover, but the structural results were clear: rising inequality, weakened labor, and long-term deficits that justified permanent austerity for the poor.

The Big Beautiful Bill is not a break from that model. It is a continuation of it. The faces have changed, the slogans are louder, and the tone is more aggressive, but the goals remain the same. Shrink public power. Shift resources to the top. Use patriotic language and urgency to sell policies that most people would never support on their own merits.

Understanding Reaganomics is not just an exercise in history. It is a map to where we are walking again.

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