Posted on 06/23/2010 9:19:12 AM PDT by Kaslin
Reagan signed budgets with tax cuts, and some tax increases with a big growth in spending and yes it resulted in a net loss called a deficit. It cannot be proved what those tax cuts produced on their own because they were not implemented on their own.
Yes, I have heard it all before, Reagan cut taxes, democrats increased spending (he signed), all good came from the tax cuts, all bad from the spending. Rush has a whole chapter saying that in his first book. That is a neat trick to draw that imaginary line. Most people wont buy that line.
If the government cuts your taxes 1$ but hires a new government employee for 10$ but he payes $3 dollars in new taxes even without speculating about economic growth that looks like a net revenue increase of $3-$1 = $2 on the surface. But it still results in 10$+1$-3= 8$ of new deficits. But Rush includes that $2 in increased revenue paid by the government employee (which he gets from deficits) as resulting from the tax cuts, that he cant prove.
Some tax cuts can reduce the deficit, but others will increase it.
You can try to spin those years any way you like. Most folks accept that tax cuts spurred economic activity. Reagan took over an economic mess, and turn things around. Kennedy cut taxes and got big economic growth. Obama has refused to cut taxes, and we’ve got one of the worst periods of stagnation I’ve seen in my lifetime.
If you wish to blame large deficits on Reagan, go ahead.
The fact is, government receipts doubled under Reagan. He cut taxes, and the economy skyrocketed.
Explain that away if you can. Nobody else has been able to.
I think Reagan was our best president but he also increased FICA taxes and cut benefits to create surplus and then spent that leaving IOUS that are being cashed in now(by borrowing) . And he started taxing SS benefits so he could spend them as general revenue too, but that increased tax revenue, Clinton expanded this. You cant add all these things together and then just say all increases in income tax revenues were due to any one thing, just because Reagan really didnt want to do those other things.
Amazing how few people understand how that works. JFK's tax cuts gave the exact same result.
If I understand the time frame of those taxes correctly, they were towards the end of his term in office, less than two years.
So trying to make the case that those tax increases were responsible for the majority of new income, falls flat. Receipts had escalated prior to the new taxation.
Why are we having this conversation? What’s your plan to increase federal receipts if you don’t want to cut taxes to spur the economy? I’ve advocated cutting spending too, and so far you haven’t jumped on that band wagon either.
What gives?
I am not blaming anything on Reagan but I am not swallowing a theory popular here based on bogus numbers just because it might benefit me. The theory includes new receipts from taxing SS benefits as well as new revenues from new government workers that were paid for by deficits, all credited as resulting from tax cuts.
Some tax cuts can reduce the deficit, but others will increase it. A general rule is , if it is really popular it probably increases the deficit.
And then you have Obama refusing to, and we have the worst stagflation I’ve seen.
Seems rather clear to me...
They do have rights. I don’t think there is a “right” to financial gain though, which is probably what this is about.
Cutting spending is the only option, that and making the 48% of the public (lower incomes) that pay no income taxes pay some so they understand what it is like.
But those things are unpopular. That is why no Republican is running on them, or at least few are. So I am skeptical they will do it. Where I live they wont even support tax cuts on themselves it's so bad.
I don’t believe in redistribution of wealth, so we’re on target there. The earned income credit is just stealing from one person to pay another.
Reagan cut the top individual tax rate from 70% to 28%. THAT alone made the economy explode.
Gentlemen,I have been in high finance all of my adult life. I have lived in the USA, UK, and Asia. I have seen first hand what tax increases do to a country, and what substantial tax cuts do for a country.
Every country that has substantially cut personal, and corporate taxes has experienced an unpresidented boom. Every country that has increased personal and corporate taxes has either suffered greatly, or collapsed altogether.
The Democrats spent money like water when Reagan was in office. Anyone remember him tossing a “continuing resolution” on the floor on network television?
Reagan made mistakes, but his Milton Friedman economic advocacy was not one of them.
The year before Regan’s person income tax cuts, I paid $106,000 in federal taxes. The next year(earning 6,000 less) I paid 42,000.
What did I do with the difference? I invested it in the expansion of my business.
D U H
Cutting certain taxes and decreasing spending is our best bet but we have been hosed by so many Santa Clauses that someone proposing just tax cuts alone then in a year or so without real spending cuts will probably just spook the bond market and raise interest rates and inflation, especially if it gets the job creation going. (We are headed for that anyway unless Obama keeps us in this endless depression.)
Everyone should pay some VISIBLE federal tax like the rest of us so they know spending actually costs. But no one elected will say that.
Thanks SJB. I appreciate your personal insight on this.
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