Good summary of the many Reagan tax INCREASES

[Karmadillo]

Link by way of today's Daily Howler. Talk about forgotten history. The author also argues George W Bush would have to raise taxes after next year's election (assuming, that is, he wins).

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/brucebartlett/bb20031028.shtml

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The only problem with this analysis is that it is historically inaccurate. Reagan may have resisted calls for tax increases, but he ultimately supported them. In 1982 alone, he signed into law not one but two major tax increases. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act raised taxes by $37.5 billion per year, and the Highway Revenue Act of 1982 raised the gasoline tax by another $3.3 billion.

According to a recent Treasury Department study, TEFRA alone raised taxes by almost 1 percent of the gross domestic product, making it the largest peacetime tax increase in American history. An increase of similar magnitude today would raise more than $100 billion per year.

In 1983, Reagan signed legislation raising the Social Security tax rate. This is a tax increase that lives with us still, since it initiated automatic increases in the taxable wage base. As a consequence, those with moderately high earnings see their payroll taxes rise every single year.

The following year, Reagan signed another big tax increase in the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984. This raised taxes by $18 billion per year or 0.4 percent of GDP. A similar sized tax increase today would be about $44 billion.

more...

[fob]

1. Be sure and bolt down your chair and buckle yourself in with a

12-point harness before reading that one. The spin is un-credible!

I don't believe that Reagan ever initiated any of the tax increases enacted during his watch. Nor do I think Bush will, either. But when all the political and economic elites of this country gang up on a president to raise taxes, history shows that they always get what they want. Indeed, they were even able to get Bush's father to raise taxes in 1990, even though his political advisers knew that it would likely lead to his defeat in 1992, which it did.

How do the elites break down presidential resistance to tax increases? They do so by promising the moon. Tax increases, they say, will lead to huge reductions in interest rates, which will power economic growth and reduce unemployment. The rich only pay them anyway, which makes the president look like a populist. And tax increases are the price that must be paid to get spending cuts

I thought these were macho repuke cowboys that had such a solid plan(supply side voodoo economics), yet they can't be bothered to veto?

The upshot of this article is an admission that the "boom years" of SSVE of the raygun years were an illusion. SSVE didn't "increase tax revenue", TAX INCREASES increased tax revenue!

Please CBS make the ronnie-fest a mini-series that exposes the truth!

fob

[leftyandproud]

2. NONE of his increases...

came close to making up for his income tax reductions...They were truly MASSIVE.

[denverbill]

4. For the rich they were.

For the poor and middle class, they were trivial.

[denverbill]

3. What I'd like to know is who ended 'indexing' for inflation.

It used to be that taxes were indexed for inflation so that a person who made e.g. $28,000 and gets an increase to $30,000 to cover inflation, doesn't end up getting pushed into a higher bracket. I know that used to happen, but I'm darned near positive it doesn't anymore.