Everyone knows that Republicans cut taxes and Democrats raise taxes, so it would make sense wouldn't it, to return to the tax policies of the Republican President that conservatives holds most dear?
The problem is that these conservatives deal more in mythology than in facts. Lets compare Obama's tax record against Reagan's.
While governor of California. Reagan looked more like a tax and spend liberal. Reagan "signed into law the largest tax increase in the history of any state up till then." Meanwhile, state spending nearly doubled.
As President, Reagan raised taxes 11 times in 7 out of 8 years. Reagan also vastly increased the size of the Federal Government and tripled the size of the deficit.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/0...Now let's look at Obama's record on Tax increases. None – couldn't find any. Obama did propose increasing taxes on the rich, but none of his proposals were made into law.
How about tax cuts? Obama tax cuts reached 95% of Americans.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/10/2...The reason the mythology is so at odds with the actual facts, is that Reagan played to his conservative base. He did cut spending – on social programs and programs that helped the poor and the middle class. But at the same time he really really increased spending for the military Industrial Complex. He did cut taxes for the super rich but he just transferred the tax burden to the poor and middle class.
So what was the actual tax burden under Reagan compared to Obama. At this time in Reagan's presidency, the top tax rate was 50% for people making over $106,000. The bottom tax rate was 11% for people earning up to $2,100.
Under Obama the top tax rate is 35% for people earning over $379,150. The bottom tax rate is only 10% for those making up to $8,500.
"For a family of four, the "average income tax rate under Reagan in 1983 was 11.06 percent. Under Clinton in 1992, it was 9.18 percent. And under Obama in 2010, it was 4.68 percent."
During Reagan's time, income tax revenue ranged from 7.8 to 9.4 percent of GDP. Last year, it was 6.2 percent and is not projected to climb back to 9 percent until 2016. In fact, in 2009, Americans paid their lowest taxes in 60 years."
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06...So do we really have a spending problem or is it a revenue problem? Revenue crashed during the economic collapse, yet the super rich today are only paying 16.8% of their income in taxes because most of that income is capital gains taxed at 10%.
At the same time Corporate taxes which used to provide 1/3rd of total revenue, has dropped considerably. Two thirds of corporations pay no taxes at all!!
http://www.alternet.org/economy/150387/2...Republicans want to kill Social Security and Medicare and take that money and give another trillion dollars to the millionaires. Are they doing the will of the people?
81% of the people think that a surtax on millionaires should be enacted to help balance the budget.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41876558/ns/...I think we should help balance the budget by asking the rich and the corporations to pay their fair share. Obama' so called Radical tax increases would retain the low tax rates on everyone except the rich who's tax rates would go up from 35% to 39.5% the rates they were when Clinton created $200 billion surpluses projected indefinitely into the future.
I think we should go even further. I think we should return to the top tax rates that Reagan had during his first term. I think we should have a surtax on millionaires of 50%.
http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/...