Reagan cut taxes, revenue boomedThe model of tax-rate cuts and deregulation can work again to restore faster growth and lift incomes.
The Reagan tax cuts were implemented in three installments, with the top marginal rate falling to 50% from 70%. When the reductions were fully in effect in 1983, the economy snapped out of the recession, and real growth averaged 4.6% for the remainder of the Reagan presidency—more than his much-maligned “rosy scenario” ever promised. In 1984, a final good-government tax provision—indexing individual brackets for inflation and thereby eliminating bracket creep—was implemented. Although indexing reduced revenue, it was overpowered by surging economic growth. Then the 1986 tax reform cut subsidies and special-interest provisions, lowered the top individual tax rate to 28%, dropped the top corporate tax rate to 34% from 46%, and provided additional incentives to work, save and invest.
When Reagan left office, real federal revenue was more than 19% higher than it was the day of his first inauguration. A major recession had been overcome, inflation had been broken, the tax code had been indexed to eliminate bracket creep, and the largest tax cut of the postwar era had been implemented. The Reagan tax cuts and the boom they created stand as the most successful policy initiative and recovery of the postwar era—the polar opposite of Mr. Obama’s program and economy.
The Reagan tax cuts laid the foundation for a quarter-century of strong, noninflationary growth, which, despite three subsequent recessions, averaged 3.4% until the beginning of the Obama administration. And tax revenue was generated by an expanding economy rather than pilfered through bracket creep. |
