Opinion: New Deal vs. Reaganomics -- Which Really Helped Families?

(May 10) -- "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Behold, A Tale of Two Charts. Each compares the trajectory of two decades of booming national growth with family incomes during the period.

One covers a postwar period (1950-1970) primarily characterized by the high marginal tax rates of the New Deal, the other an era (1985-2005) when Reaganomic nostrums of tax cuts and lower marginal rates were largely in force.

One shows growth family income lagging far behind the expansion of gross domestic product. The other has the two in virtual lockstep.

Naturally, if one were a rock-ribbed, right-wing erstwhile Reaganaut -- and I am -- one would anticipate that the chart on the bottom would present the fruits of the Gipper's fiscal policies.

Oops.

In fact, former President George W. Bush administration speechwriter and social commentator Robert Patterson, writing in the spring edition of the policy journal The Family in America, points up an inconvenient truth for the Grand Old Party: "The economy that Ronald Reagan inspired was never as great as its cheerleaders claim, especially when compared to the achievements of the 1950s and the 1960s."

To wit: According to the Census Bureau, the inflation-adjusted median income of a married-couple family leaped 93 percent between 1950 and 1970, lagging just behind a 112 percent real hike in GDP.

In the post-Reagan years? Not so much. GDP up a nearly identical 113 percent. Income just 26 percent.

Ouch.

So why did New Deal policies crush Reaganomics when it came to family incomes? Not because of big spending programs.

It's because the New Dealers were -- wait for it -- more conservative.

You heard right.

In their book "Grand New Party" -- cited approvingly by Patterson -- Forbes.com's Reihan Salam and the New York Times' Ross Douthat point out that New Deal-era policies championed by FDR and his successors fostered "an era of profound social conservatism."

The authors maintain that New Deal policies even celebrated the "normal family" -- a male, breadwinning head of household, a stay-at-home mom and three or more children.

And that priority helped usher in three decades of soaring marriage and birth rates -- and plunging incidence of divorce and illegitimacy -- which in turn helped ensure that family incomes kept pace with a sizzling postwar economy.

The lesson seems pretty obvious: Promoting intact, traditional families is good politics and good economics. Douthat, Salam and Patterson go so far as to propose income and payroll tax breaks -- aimed only at married couples.

Whoa. Try selling that angle at today's Democratic National Committee headquarters. You'd have better luck peddling Rush Limbaugh buttons at a MoveOn.org convention.

You won't gain much traction with a skittish GOP, either. Its "go-to" electoral base is largely made up of social and religious conservatives with the welcome mat out for a "families-that-stay-together-make-hay-together" message. But, as Patterson notes, "Republican elites would rather talk about anything but social issues," pointing to Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's lightning-fast disavowal of his master's thesis positing the negative impact of mothers working outside the home. Nor has the largely libertarian tea party movement or conservative icons like Sean Hannity shown much interest in making "family values" part of their shtick.

Does November look like the best of times for a GOP poised to pounce on voter outrage over Obamacare and megadebt? Certainly.

But what about the long term? Another round of Reagan-style across-the-board tax cuts? To channel Sarah Palin: How did that work out for ya in the last two election cycles?

So here's the conundrum: The best sustained stimulus may well be, as Patterson puts it, "a recovery of the child-rich, married-parent family as the centerpiece of American life." But one party is too ideologically blinded by its commitments to its progressive wing, and the other too apprehensive on social issues and bound to libertarian economic ideals to grasp that possibility.

OK -- there may be no bringing back the days of Ozzie and Harriet with a "New" New Deal. But if Patterson, Douthat and Salam are right, there might just be economic and electoral gold in finding some way to provide a better deal -- and better times -- for traditional families.

Bob Maistros is a speechwriter, crisis communications consultant and satirist who contributes regularly to the North Star National.


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