Yes, the Reagan tax cuts were great, but in the end taxpayers were bamboozled. Rates were lowered in exchange for getting rid of deductions and “loopholes”, money flowed into the treasury as the economy boomed, and then politicians kept on spending what they got and more. Of course, the deficits increased, so guess what? The sleazes in DC raised the rates back up again, but the deductions were gone forever. Folks, be prepared to get hosed again.
Unless spending is really cut, not just cuts in the proposed spending increases, nothing will change. American voters really don’t want smaller government or we would have it. Nobody wants his own government benefit cut. They want the other guy’s government benefit cut. Just ask farmers or electric car makers how they fell about ethanol mandates or tax credits for electric vehicles.
Until WE vote in people who will vote that way we should take what we can get. One percent growth will turn us into a turf world country. Bringing back corporate money and increasing growth is our best bet at the moment
He managed to cut taxes and double revenues over 8 years. He proposed eight budgets one of which was enacted.
George Mitchell and Tip O Neill gleefully tore them up and substituted their own budgets, which always found ways to spend the additional revenue and then to create deficits on top of that spending. There was no “Regan Deficit” as liberals claim; there was only “Tip O Neil/George Mitchell” deficits that required the eventual raising of taxes.
I would note that Regan’s budgets did have deficits, mostly to fund defense, but the additional revenue would have made up for them.
There are no “loopholes,” there is only tax law. The late Dan Rostenkowski, head of Ways and Means, was fond of saying that the tax code was used to reward your friends and punish your enemies.
The bamboozling was not done by Reagan, but by the Democrats who controlled congress and did everything they could to sabotage Reagan’s efforts.