CNN's Capitol Gang (CNN)ROBERT NOVAK: ... has nothing to do with reality. What the reality is, is taxes. That's what this whole issue is about. Are you going to have a highly-graduated Karl Marx-type tax system...
(LAUGHTER)
NOVAK: ... or are you going to have a Ronald Reagan-Jack Kemp- type tax system? And George W. Bush has opted for the latter.
Well, I'm not sure why the Capitol Gangstas were laughing, but I know why I was. The following statements are from MSNBC's obituary for Ronald Reagan (
link).
Despite Reagan’s aversion to taxes, the corporate tax rate doubled during his tenure as California governor, and the top personal income rate jumped by nearly 60 percent.
To stimulate the economy, Reagan had championed Jack Kemp’s across-the-board income tax cuts in 1981, but he blunted their effect when he acceded to a $100 billion tax increase only a year later.
Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., convinced Reagan that Congress would make $3 in spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases. Reagan signed the tax increase — but Congress never made the spending cuts.
In 1982, he signed into law the Garn-St. Germain Act, which deregulated the savings and loan industry and ended up costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars as S&L owners plunged into speculative investments. Economist Paul Krugman called it the “biggest single economic policy disaster of the 1980s.”
Novak plays us stupid here: Marx, EVIL. Reagan, GOOD.
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