Chart of the Day: Reagan Loved Tax Hikes

[Playinghardball]

Source: Mother Jones

The next time you hear Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, Michele Bachmann, or Rick Perry wax nostalgic for the good old, tax-cutting, government-drowning Reagan days of yore, consider tweeting the following, via Bruce Bartlett:



As Bartlett, a former Republican budget official, notes, the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 was the single largest peacetime tax increase in history. But he also points out that there was still a net tax cut during the Regan years, with revenue nearly $265 billion lower in 1988 than it would have been without the sweeping tax cuts he introduced in 1981's Economic Recovery Tax Act—half of which he'd taken back by the end of his administration.

That set the stage for...the next twenty-five years of broken tax policy:

It was their inability to simply cut taxes that really made Republicans interested in tax reform, which had historically been of more interest to Democrats. It was only by pairing tax increases with tax cuts that Republicans could keep alive their goal of reducing statutory tax rates. Their ultimate goal has long been to abolish progressivity by having a single tax rate that applies to everyone. . . .

More: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/10/chart-day-reagan-tax-lover

[moondust]

1. Even Reagan knew

that he couldn't vastly increase military spending without raising some taxes to pay for it. Of course he didn't raise them nearly enough to offset his profligate spending but still...