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Fixing America's Finances

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Ronald Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, says it’s time to cut and tax to save the country’s finances.

Lawmakers are racing to reach a deal on the nation's debt ceiling before the August, when the US could go into default. (Creative Commons)
Lawmakers are racing to reach a deal on the nation's debt ceiling before August, when the US could go into default. (Creative Commons)

David Stockman was there at the beginning of the Republican political comeback.  The Reagan revolution.  He was Ronald Reagan’s budget director.

Flash forward thirty years, and David Stockman is now devastatingly critical of current Republican moves on the US deficit.

The leading GOP deficit plan, says Stockman, quote:  "appears to be an attack on the poor in order to coddle the rich." Ouch. But wait. He's very tough on Democrats, too. Solving our fiscal problems, he says, will take big cuts and new taxes.

This hour: David Stockman on the American deficit.
- Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

David Stockman, former U.S. congressman from Michigan, Reagan administration budget director and author of "Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed."  Read his op-ed for the New York Times.

Gail Chaddock, senior congressional correspondent, The Christian Science Monitor

This program aired on May 19, 2011.

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