As much as people may dislike Regan, his goal for reducing taxes on the wealthy was based upon the laffer curve. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

The hypothesis is that lowering taxes rates will actually increase government revenues.

The Trump cuts don't feel like they're laffer optimal. Instead they feel like political capture by the wealthy class. A cumulative of left of laffer optimal tax strategies over the past years have resulted in a deficit growing at rates which now exceed what a laffer peak rate would now support.

- the rich got their tax breaks, and have contributed to deficits for decades. Now they complain that social security entitlements must be cut to keep within our means.

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ElevenLathe 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's really more that the (narrow, academic, theoretical) Laffer curve provided cover for the Reagan admin to cut taxes in the ways their backers wanted, but this is admittedly unproven AFAIK. But then there's the observable fact that the Reagan cuts weren't Laffer-optimal either (revenues went down, not up). It's not clear that there is a Laffer-optimal tax cut that can currently be made, but instead of making a case for that it has just become "centrist" dogma that lower taxes always increase growth and revenues, and are always optimal no matter the actual fiscal or economic situation.

	▲	rayiner 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think the more interesting observation is that neither Clinton, nor Obama, nor Biden made any effort to roll back the biggest part of Reagan's tax cuts: reducing taxes on the middle class. That's quite remarkable, because that's the area where the U.S. diverges the most in tax policy from other western countries.

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Hikikomori 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>As much as people may dislike Regan, his goal for reducing taxes on the wealthy was based upon the laffer curve.

That changes everything, doesn't matter that it didn't work at all.

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tstrimple 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> As much as people may dislike Regan, his goal for reducing taxes on the wealthy was based upon the laffer curve.

If this were the case, revenue would have gone up after the tax cuts. They didn't. Receipts as share of GDP fell and the deficit tripled. The debt went from 25% of GDP to 40% of GDP during Reagan. We've never meaningfully been on the wrong side of the Laffer curve. It's basically just conservative propaganda at this point.

As the other post mentioned, the strategy is and was Starve the Beast. We know this because that's what Reagan actually campaigned on.

> "John Anderson tells us that first we've got to reduce spending before we can reduce taxes. Well, if you've got a kid that's extravagant, you can lecture him all you want to about his extravagance. Or you can cut his allowance and achieve the same end much quicker."

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joquarky 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Now they complain that social security entitlements must be cut to keep within our means.

That's the Starve the Beast strategy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast