The U.S.A. economy has been growing nicely for more than 6 years now. GW's tax cuts have added immensly to the federal coffers. U.S. deficit spending is down vis a vis total spending for several years.
yitbos
“The U.S.A. economy has been growing nicely for more than 6 years now. GW’s tax cuts have added immensly to the federal coffers. U.S. deficit spending is down vis a vis total spending for several years.”
Reducing deficit spending still means that you have been adding to the debt each year, albeit at a declining rate. Dubya has greatly increased the national debt on his watch. It’s no trick to gun the economy with deficit spending. That is standard Keynesian practiice. Perhaps you are commending Dubya for being a Keynesian, but I doubt it.
“W’s tax cuts have added immensly to the federal coffers”
This indicates to me that you have likely taken your economic education from famed economists Rush and Hannity. If you would prefer to learn from Reagan’s own economists you would find that this would be an historic first.
Reagan’s tax cuts didn’t increase the take to the Treasury, and it’s extremely unlikely that Dubya’s did either. But Reagan’s cuts did do exactly what he intended it to do - to grow the economy without losing as much revenue to the Treasury as static analysis predicted.
Reagan’s economic team forecast that the tax cuts would cause enough growth to recoup some 60 cents of each dollar lost through rate cutes. They came within pennies of their forecast, the revenue recouped was over 60 cents. But in no fashion did the rate cuts generate more revenue than they lost.
If you would care to research this on your own find yourself a copy of Martin Anderson’s “Revolution”. Anderson spends considerable time debunking what he calls “the myth of the supply-siders” and explicating what he and the rest of Reagan’s team were actually doing. Anderson was one of Ronald Reagan’s principle advisors going back to his days as Governor.
Separating out the effects of tax cuts versus all the other inputs affecting Treasury receipts is a complex business. Lawrence Lindsey, Dubya’s first economic advisor, did exactly that when he was a Harvard prof. The study is published as “The Growth Experiment” . The only tax cut that paid for itself was the capital gains tax cut, which ironically was signed by Carter. The Reagan cuts behaved as Reagan’s team predicted they would.