RAYGUN & TAXES & WINGNUTS

Few wingnuts, especially Hannity, seem to recall that Raygun was forced to raise taxes because the supply-side tax cuts he got enacted dramatically reduced revenue.


Scoring on a Reverse
By WALTER ISAACSON
Monday, Aug. 30, 1982

Reagan, who had come to Washington preaching a gos pel of tax cuts, had wrested from an election-edgy Congress a huge tax increase that is expected to raise $98.3 billion over the next three years.

What caused Reagan to reverse field, with the economy essentially stagnant and nearly 10 million Americans unemployed, was a crippling fear that deficits over the next three years could reach $500 billion if no adjustments were made in his program. In order to keep at bay this looming behemoth and bring interest rates down, Reagan accepted the need to raise new revenues.

The payoff of Reaganomics, which is eventually supposed to be robust growth and balanced budgets, has so far been just the opposite: record deficits and the deepest recession since the Great Depression.