Posted on 10/01/2009 8:37:45 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Right. The House holds the purse strings for taxes and spending. They get to approve or disapprove the Presidents budget. In 1981, the Dems controlled the House. Reagan campaigned on cutting personal income taxes 30% across the board. With the help of conservative Democrats in the House, the ERTA, or Kemp-Roth, cut taxes 23%. A huge policy success. Problem was, the House didn't cut spending. That increased the annual federal deficit and added to the debt.
Absolutely not!
It destroyed 30 years of tax planing and boosted taxes on high income people that were smart enough to use the tax code to their advantage.
It ruined the airlines and cost any business that leased equipment up the back side because all rental and leased buildings and equipment had to be positive.
Before that all high income people bought rail cars, airplanes, apartment houses, industrial equipment, commercial buildings and rented or leased them at a loss and wrote the loss off against ordinary income.
After 5 or 7 years after rapid depreciation they sold them and their profit was the difference between the ordinary income tax and the 25% capitol gains tax.
From the years of 78 to 87 I had income of over 100k and paid no income taxes by using the tax code against them.
Since then even with a greatly reduced income I have to pay income taxes, it stinks!!!!
“With the help of conservative Democrats in the House, the ERTA, or Kemp-Roth, cut taxes 23%. A huge policy success. Problem was, the House didn’t cut spending. That increased the annual federal deficit and added to the debt.”
You mean it was easier to get the House to cut taxes than to cut spending?
The ERTA of 1981 was highly successful. I listed off many of the major accomplishments in my first post.
The Tax Foundation calls the Tax Reform Act of 1986: "stands as a rare example of bipartisan support for fundamentally sound tax policy".
Twenty years ago today, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the broadest revision of the federal income tax in history. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 -- the biggest and most controversial legislative story of its time -- had lawmakers, lobbyists and journalists in Washington in an uproar for two years. Despite nearly dying several times, the measure eventually passed, producing a simpler code with fewer tax breaks and significantly lower rates. The changes affected every family and business in the nation.
Sounds like you have a bad case of sour grapes.
Whats your point?
He destroyed construction and a lot of other industries and raised the taxes for high income people that either had the smarts to read the tax code or had an accountant that was smart enough to use it to advantage.
Reagan was also a big spender in California.
He doubled spending and tippled state employment and only balanced the budget in his last year by taking 2 years taxes in on year on a one time basis by instituting payroll wit holding taxes.
A few months before that became law I introduced him at a convention at which he stated “I will never allow withholding taxes as long as i’m Governor”.
He left the state for 2 days and had the Lt. Governor sign the withholding tax law.
LOL Sounds like sour grapes to me. Simply not true.
Here in southern Colorado construction was booming in the 1980`s. By 1983 the national recession was over and the ecomony went on a 17 year boom.
When Reagan took over from Pat Brown, California was in worse fiscal shape then anyone knew. Reagan did raise income taxes but returned $5-billion to taxpayers in the form of four tax rebates. He reformed welfare and lowered the state welfare rolls. Reagan cut spending by using the line item veto 943 times. Reagan came in with a huge deficit and left with a big surplus.
Most conservatives thought Reagan did a good overall job and had a successful run as California Governor.
“Most conservatives thought Reagan did a good overall job and had a successful run as California Governor.”
Horse shit!!!!
UROC, the most conservative Republican organization in California opposed him in the Presidental primary and had an 80 point outline why they opposed him.
I was a member of the RSCCC from 64-82 and had to fight his tax and spend proposals on the floor.
LOL So you didn't vote for Reagan. Who did you vote for? George Christopher?
Crane in the Primary.
Phil Crane was a Goldwater man and a loyal Republican.
No shit!
In fact we hwld a fund raiser for him on the Queen Mary in Long Beach and I personally donated $2,000 to him.
Crane wasn’t Presidential material and neither was Goldwater.
So who did you vote for in the general, Anderson?
In 1984?
In Cal 66? & Cal 70?
Just curious.
No, I voted for Reagan, i’ve never voted for any candidate that wasn’t a Republican, I have witheld my vote for a number of offices through the years but never voted for a 3rd party or a democrap.
I figured as much.
Thanks and good night.
I didn’t realize I was being so subtle. The House passed the tax cuts. The same House didn’t pass all of Reagan’s spending cuts, though they did make a substantial improvement over the Carter years. The bottom line is that tax cuts are much easier to pass than spending cuts. If you’re going to give credit to Reagan for getting his tax cut through the House, then you also have to say it was a failure on his part to get his spending cuts through as well. By the way, this failure extended all the way through his two terms of office. This just shows you how entrenched the interests are that perpetuate big spending. Even the most gifted politician of the 20th century couldn’t make any substantial progress in cutting the budget. And it wasn’t just the dems blocking his way, the repubs were just as guilty.
Bottom line: To label the House as “sadistic” for failing to pass the spending cuts and when it was the same House that passed the tax cuts is disingenuous.
The endless dishonesty over 27 years of ABC’s Charles Gibson was accented recently with this loathsome liar actually claiming he never heard of any ACORN scandals, WEEKS after the James and Hannah undercover investigations were released.
While its true that tax cuts are easier to get through the House then spending cuts, you ignored a critical point. Reagan was dealing with a Democrat controlled House. He did get opposition from some liberal Republicans, but he also garnered support from conservative Democrats. If Reagan had a GOP House to go along with the GOP Senate, things would have been different.
The word sadistic came from the article. Saying it was "disingenuous" to use it the way I did, is just silly. I think those supporters of big government spending were the problem back then. Just like they are today.
I thought that Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts reduced the highest rate from 69% to 35% (cutting it almost in half) but that it was raised to 39% in 1983.
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