In 1985 I was leaving my job as Senior Economist at the Pentagon where I had been for seven years. During this time I had rebuilt the economic analysis capabilities of the Department that had been missing. It was a good time to come and I had free reign to do interesting and important things. During the Carter administration I had proposed and was in the process of starting a program of multi-national cooperation to issue NATO Bonds to rebuild defense capabilities and to allow multi-national sharing of the costs and benefits of procurement. When Reagan came in he did what I was going to do with jointly financed spending through NATO bonds by deficit spending. The goal was the same -- to drive the Soviet Union into the tank after their losses in Afghanistan had seriously damaged the government there. I was planning to demonstrate massive financial stength of the alliance to the Soviets through the Nato bonds program and Reagan did it with deficit finance.
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