Aestu wrote:
Partisan article does not establish causative link between tax cuts and growth.
Taxes were cut in both the 1920s, 1960s, and 1980s because major wars (World War I, World War II / Korea, and Vietnam) had just ended and the wartime tax rates were obsolescent. The cuts were not stimulus driven, and the cuts weren't previously funding civil services.
Setting this basic failure aside: Growth in the 1920s was unsustainable, based on borrowing and speculation, and ended in the Great Depression.
During the 1960s, the US faced no serious economic opposition abroad because of continuing dominance from World War II. Huge sums were spent in RnD and not speculation or servicing debt. The government itself poured vast sums into the space program and building tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, with all the jobs and development that came from it.
The 1980s was another unsustainable bubble that ended in the SnL crisis, and the "growth" of the late 1980s followed the fallout of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and its effect on oil prices and consequent development. Tax revenue soared because inflation shot through the roof and people saw their salaries and savings wiped out.
Partisan? Yes, but also decently researched. I doubt you had time to read the long version with all the notations and references.
You should probably also check your dates. While WWI ended a short time before the change in economic policy in the 20s, the Korean/Vietnam Wars ended almost a decade before Kennedy/Reagan took office. While the economic effects of war would have definitely been influential for several years, such an effect fades quickly as time progresses.
It's probably not an error to suggest that our global economic advantage during the 60s contributed to improved performance, or further to suggest that global conditions impacted our economy in the late 70s/early 80s. Yet your assessment of the 70s/80s overlooks the tax changes made during the Carter Administration (eerily similar to those introduced/suggested by our current President) that led to that "wealthiest 1%" holding on to their money (lenders not lending sound familiar?) and creating a period of "stagflation." If anything your critique points out that during all the periods mentioned, the only constant to be observed in each case is the reduction of tax rates.
The cuts definitely were designed to stimulate the economy, at least in the cases of Reagan and Kennedy. In fact, JFK said:
"It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now ... Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus."
– John F. Kennedy, Nov. 20, 1962, president's news conference
"Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased – not a reduced – flow of revenues to the federal government."
– John F. Kennedy, Jan. 17, 1963, annual budget message to the Congress
The facts are there, if you choose to disbelieve them because you don't like the messenger(s), that's your business.
Your Pal,
Jubber
Could we just forget I said anything?