Oh. My. God. LMAO. That idiot Tea Partier clearly has no knowledge of the fifties besides what's promoted by pop culture. If the Tea Party is really for "smaller government" and lower taxes, the idea of them saying that the fifties with its tax rates and government power and regulation were better than is almost Orwellian. Teabaggers also seem to hate unions too, and the question as to whether unions had more power in the fifties or today isn't even really worthy of debate.
Putting aside the obvious I'd gladly take the 1950s over today in most respects. We didn't have the great society entitlements and social security was more limited
even with Eisenhower expanding it, we had a lower overall regulatory burden (seriously, look at a lot of local ordinances passed +
the massive expansion in the federal register since the 1970s), plus even taking into account the high marginal rate there were tons of loopholes you could abuse if you were rich and it was done in such a way the vast majority of people paid less... And we didn't have the ridiculous college bubble or parasite credit card companies either. Not
great policy wise, but certainly much better than now for most people and definitely preferable from a conservative/libertarian perspective. Of course if the average TRUE CONSERVATIVE were remotely honest or bothered to read anything other than WND they would dislike Reagan for well,
basically all his economic policies.Yeah, actually heroin use skyrocketed in cities particularly after Korea never mind the widespread abuse of Meth (which was in a lot of things, like diet pills or generic uppers) before it was more regulated. Although obviously Marijuana wasn't anywhere near as mainstream. Irony.
