"A sober review of Reagan's presidency doesn't yield the seamlessly conservative record being peddled today. Federal government expanded on his watch. The conservative desire to outlaw abortion was never seriously pursued. Reagan broke with the handlers in his administration and compromised with the Soviets on arms control. His assault on entitlements never materialized; instead he saved Social Security in 1983. And he repeatedly ignored the fundamental conservative dogma that taxes should never be raised."
After Reagan's early victories on defense and tax cuts, according to Green, the Gipper "never seriously tried to enact the radical agenda he'd campaigned on." Conservatives still celebrate the massive cuts in income tax rates Reagan achieved in the first year of his presidency. However, that Reagan raised taxes four times between 1982 and 1984 is rarely mentioned. "Just two years after declaring, "there is no justification" for taxing corporate income," Green writes, "Reagan raised corporate taxes by $120-billion over five years and closed corporate tax loopholes worth about $300-billion over that same period."
http://hnn.us/comments/7985.htmlReagan's Liberal Legacy
Faced with looming deficits, Reagan raised taxes again in 1983 with a gasoline tax and once more in 1984, this time by $50 billion over three years, mainly through closing tax loopholes for business. Despite the fact that such increases were anathema to conservatives--and probably cost Reagan's successor, George H.W. Bush, reelection--
Reagan raised taxes a grand total of four times just between 1982-84.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0301.green.html