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Federal tax receipts are growing in response to a tax cut. Again.

And the supply-side roosters are claiming credit for the dawn. Again. See the analysis at http://home.att.net/~rdavis2/taxcuts.html. If you have specific disagreements with any of the numbers or conclusions, please post them. Alternately, please post a link to a budget document or credible economic study that purports to show that any major cut in income tax rates has ever paid for itself. I am more than willing to look at any serious evidence that any supply-sider is willing to present. But I have had a very hard time finding a supply-sider who will present any.

Alternately, please post a link to a budget document or credible economic study that purports to show that any major cut in income tax rates has ever paid for itself. I am more than willing to look at any serious evidence that any supply-sider is willing to present. But I have had a very hard time finding a supply-sider who will present any.

Except for a capital gains tax cut, I don't believe any tax cut "pays for itself". Do you dispute the fact that a cut in marginal income tax rates partially "pays for itself"?

In other words, if you cut the top tax rate from 70% to 50% you should reduce receipts by 28.5%. If you reduce the top rate from 50% to 28% you should reduce receipts by 44%. Does this actually occur?

I am more than willing to look at any serious evidence that any Concord Coalition member is willing to present.

The source you cite states:

"The argument that the near-doubling of revenues during Reagan's two terms proves the value of tax cuts is an old argument. It's also extremely flawed. At 99.6 percent, revenues did nearly double during the 80s. However, they had likewise doubled during EVERY SINGLE DECADE SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION!"

Why leave out the Great Depression? Doesn't revenue always double every ten years? Does this not apply worldwide? France, Italy, Russia? South Africa? Wouldn't an extension of Carter's stagflation for 10 or 20 years would have produced successive doubling of tax revenues? Is this not an immutable law of nature - tax revenues double every decade, day follows night?

Tax revenue growth is not due to the calendar. It's not something that we should take for granted. I would like to see evidence that high sustained tax rates yield permanently high tax revenues. I think FDR, and various socialist countries have tried and failed.

I think it important to note that, by and large, the US is a low tax environment. Our economy grows, even tax revenues. It's no coincidence.

Alternately, please post a link to a budget document or credible economic study that purports to show that any major cut in income tax rates has ever paid for itself.

Are you familiar with Lindsey's "The Growth Experiment"? IIRC his study found only one instance of a rate cut "that paid for itself", and that was the capital gains cut of 1978. From Martin Anderson's "Revolution" you can learn that the Reagan team never made a claim that rate cuts would pay for themselves, only that they would stimulate growth and recoup some of the revenue loss predicted by static analysis. Anderson spends a good number of pages debunking "the myth of the supply siders" and disassociating the Reagan program from the "myth". Anderson was one of President Reagan's chief economic advisors dating back to his time as Governor, so Anderson's memoir carries some weight.