Once again, we must address ‘What Our Children Are Being Taught In Our Schools.’ This time it is in our nation’s High School Advanced Placement (AP) Government curriculum. It is quite disturbing.
We start with the following practice question from this year’s Barron’s test preparation book for the Advanced Placement (AP) Exam for “U.S. Government and Politics” taken by millions of our brightest HS students. See if you can surmise the answer.
Traditionally, the Republican Party has been viewed as favoring which of the following groups? (A) Big business; (B) The poor; (C) The middle class; (D) African-Americans; (E) Hispanics
The answer, of course, is (A). Consider the effect of teaching this to our children. First, it marginalizes the Republican Party by suggesting upwards of 80% of the electorate are NOT favored by Republicans. It makes you wonder how they ever win elections. Second, it isn’t even true, especially in the last election cycle, when large financial, pharmaceutical, and health care companies backed Obama.
But more importantly, selection (A) could have been ”Economic growth,” “Entrepreneurs,” or even “Business.” But those characterizations do not demonize business or Republicans enough. Wonder if there is a similar question tying Democrats to Big Unions or Big Government? No, there isn’t. I looked.
Reagonomics, Bad; Clintonomics, Good
To continue with the previous discussion, the Barron’s test preparation book also prepares students for the Free-Response Essay portion of the AP U.S. Government and Politics exam. On pages 345-347, the test-taker is asked to: (a.) Identify and explain one key policy of Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton as it relates to economic philosophy; and (b.) Show how it was applied to economic policy.
The following are excerpts of what Barron’s illustrates as an appropriate response to the question.
It’s a lot to read and even more to swallow. (You’re lucky I’m only making you read excerpts)
Ronald Reagan’s Policies: ”Supply-siders held that an abundance of efficiently produced goods could actually stimulate demand enough to raise the entire GNP. During the 1979 campaign, Reagan construed such a theory as the solution to the lingering problem of stagflation. . . .
Yet after his election, supply-side economics did not manifest itself in a significant reduction in government expenditures, nor even an increase in government revenues. . . . [Reagan] successfully instituted a regressive income tax and lowered the capital gains tax, resulting in an expansion of the upper-income tax bracket. But an examination of the fluctuations in GNP indicated that the economy expanded decidedly unevenly, encouraging a widening distribution of personal income comparable to the 1920s. Reagan’s policies had indeed provided American firms the capital necessary to invest and develop more efficient and cost-effective goods and services. Yet unlike Japanese businesses, American firms invested little of such assets, so that the proportion of the GNP dedicated to R&D never increased.
This trend may explain precisely why a boost in incomes of the business class. . . . never increased supply and in turn failed to stimulate demand or produce massive national wealth. Firms and the wealthy used increased revenue to consume rather than to save. Productivity gradually declined, much technological innovation never hit the factory floor, and quite simply, businesses consequently did not need to hire more workers and could not afford to increase wages proportional to the amount of revenues businesses were receiving.
The decline in productivity increased the deficit and increased the wealth of the smallest portion of the economy. This wouldn’t have been quite so harmful had it not been for one other component of Reagan’s policy. . . . the systematic reduction of the government’s mechanism’s of demand. Because this reduction was not offset by an increase in demand, the middle class lost vital programs resulting in loss of wages.
The decline in prosperity of the heart of American society precipitated an electoral crisis in confidence. The middle class identified the U.S. deficit as a symbol of the manner in which government trapped them. Not only did the eight years of regressive taxation inhibit them, but they faced the prospect of having to pay back the debt at increasing levels of interest.”
Bill Clinton’s Policies: Clinton successful defined the agenda of the 1992 election. James Carville identified the principal issue. ”It’s the economy, stupid. . . . ” By the beginning of the 1990s the negative effects of Reagan’s policies manifested themselves in economic recession and massive unemployment. . . .
The Clinton camp articulated a platform that embodied a large increase in government spending. . . . He proposed an increase in education spending, a middle class tax cut (which would undoubtedly have stimulated demand but was not fiscally plausible, and was not enacted), a reduction of corporate welfare, and a general stimulus package, which the Senate never passed. Such a platform theoretically would have reduced the burden of the middle class, because [they] would not have to rely on the trickle-down generosity of the wealthy business class. And since businesses failed to invest the money that Reagan had provided them Clinton sought to stimulate innovation and productivity through labor and educational spending. . . .
Although Clinton’s fiscal policies, alongside a turn in the business cycle, succeeded in ending the recession and stimulating a new period of growth, other problems resulted in a Republican mid-term victory. But after Clinton victory on 1996, the economy remained on solid ground. The deficit was reduced by more than half. Millions of jobs were created. So James Carville’s 1992 prophecy became economic reality in 1996.
REMEMBER, the students taking this AP exam are our best and brightest, and are among those most likely to enter the fields of law and politics.
In the current issue of NRIE’s Newsletter, I offer some comments to address the biases, omissions, and falsehoods contained in the ”Model” response offered by Barron’s. I had to restrain myself, because I could have written a book. To subscribe, click “Join NRIE” on NRIE’s main page — www.nrie.org.