In criticizing the U.S. government for addressing the current economic crisis by “spend[ing] trillions of dollars that we don't have,” Joe Scarborough stated during the March 3 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe that “the average unemployment rate for 1984” was the “same that the unemployment rate is right now” and then added: "[A]nd ... 1975, it was nine [percent]; 1982, it was about 11 percent, and we didn't nationalize everything then and ... we didn't say we are going to put a stimulus bill out there to get people back to work right now and spend money we didn't have." But contrary to Scarborough's suggestion that the U.S. could address the current economic downturn by enacting similar policies to those of the 1980s, as Nobel laureate Paul Krugman explained during an appearance with Scarborough on the February 6 edition of Morning Joe, “Right now, the interest rate is zero. The [Federal Reserve] can't rescue us this time, and that's why we can't do the things we did in the '80s.”

On the February 6 edition of Morning Joe, Krugman stated:

[I]n 1982, when the economy was deeply depressed, the Federal Reserve said, “OK, we've got to do something about this,” and they cut interest rates from 13 percent to around 7 percent, and the economy took off. Right now, the interest rate is zero. The Fed can't rescue us this time, and that's why we can't do the things we did in the '80s. We have to have an approach that harks back to the things that worked very well in the first four years of the New Deal until Franklin Roosevelt was persuaded to go orthodox all over again.

Indeed, as noted on the website of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the federal funds rate peaked at 20 percent in late May 1981, was approximately 13 percent in mid-July 1982, and dropped below 7 percent by April 1986, while the discount rate peaked at 14 percent in early May 1981, dropped to 9.5 percent in mid-October 1982, and dropped below 7 percent by early March 1986. As of mid-December 2008, both the federal funds rate and discount rate were at 1 percent or lower.

According to an August 1983 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, the "[l]ower interest rates after mid-1982 permitted the recovery to begin":

The Economy At Mid-1983

Recovery started in December 1982 from the deepest postwar recession, the second of two since 1980. Both recessions were brought on by monetary restriction aimed at bringing inflation under control. Lower interest rates after mid-1982 permitted the recovery to begin. Real GNP grew at a 2.6 percent annual rate in the first quarter and at an 8.7 percent annual rate in the second quarter of 1983.

The CBO report also concluded: “A dramatic decline in inflation, a fall in interest rates from levels that were extraordinarily high to levels that are merely high, and the stock market boom have contributed to the improvement in economic conditions.”

Additionally, Michael Mussa, a member of Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers, wrote in an essay for American Economic Policy in the 1980s (University of Chicago Press, 1995) that when the Federal Reserve cut the discount rate a half percentage point on July 20, 1982, it “signal[ed] the beginning of what would become a four-and-a-half-year period of quite rapid monetary expansion. During this period, interest rates, both short and long term, would be driven significantly lower, and the U.S. economy would substantially recover from the devastation of both inflation and recession.”

From the March 3 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:

SCARBOROUGH: Mark, I went back and looked at unemployment rates and other economic indicators to see just how -- 'cause I've heard that this is the worst recession since the Great Depression, and so, yes we have to spend trillions of dollars that we don't have.

I went back and I saw that, in 1984, remember “morning in America”? Farmers throwing hay; America's getting back to work. Everything -- steelworkers doing their thing and everybody was happy. Ronald Reagan wins 49 out of 50 states.

MARK HALPERIN (Time senior political analyst): Root beer in the water fountains.

SCARBOROUGH: Root beer coming out of the water fountains, whisky waterfalls -- boy, those were the days.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI (co-host): OK. Get to the point now.

SCARBOROUGH: Did you know the unemployment rate for 1984 -- the average unemployment rate for 1984 -- the same that the unemployment rate is right now?

HALPERIN: Maybe a little higher, like nine --

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah. Yeah, and we -- 1975, it was nine; 1982, it was about 11 percent, and we didn't nationalize everything then and we didn't have -- we didn't say we're going to put a stimulus bill out there to get people back to work right now and spend money we didn't have.

HALPERIN: Well, there's no question that part of the bigness of this involves an effort to exploit the weakness of the Republicans and do things on health care, on education, and on the environment that are trying to take advantage of the crisis to grow the role of government.