ABSTRACT
This chapter will apply critical analysis of economic arguments to one of the most important debates in recent decades between conservatives and liberals or leftists—the extent to which economic inequalities, and especially the gap between the rich and the middle class and poor, have been increasing in the United States since the 1970s. This debate also involves the consequences for economic inequality of tax cuts and cutbacks in government regulation of business, which were justified by “supply-side economics,” or “Reaganomics,” during the presidential administration of Ronald Reagan (1980–1988) and again revived by President George W. Bush (2000–2008), by John McCain as a presidential candidate in 2008, and Mitt Romney in 2012; throughout both of his terms, President Obama clashed with Republicans in Congress over his attempts to rescind President Bush’s tax cuts for the rich and to restore more regulation of business. Conservative and liberal positions on these issues are more fully developed in “An Outline of Conservative and Liberal or Leftist Arguments …” at the end of this chapter, and it would be helpful for you to read through them now as background for the following discussion of statistical evidence presented by the opposing sides in support of their general lines of argument.
