Mark & Juanita wrote in message . ..
On 31 Aug 2004 05:57:29 -0700, (Josh Rosenbluth) wrote:

Repeating, inflation-adjusted income tax revenues were lower in each
of 1982-86 than they were in 1981.

Not knowing how the above table will translate to other newsreaders,
looking at only the % real increase:
Year Inflation adjusted increase
1975 -
1976 0.57%
1977 9.67%
1978 3.41%
1979 2.45%
1980 -3.10%
1981 3.42%
1982 -3.21%
1983 -6.06%
1984 5.59%
1985 5.61%
1986 2.66%
1987 6.37%
1988 1.94%
1989 3.46%

You have again lumped together income and payroll taxes. Let's re-do
that table with only income taxes (starting with 1982, the first year
of the tax cut), and let's also add cumulative percentage compared to
1981.

Year % from prior year Cum % from 1981
-------------------------------------------
1982: -6.6% -6.6%
1983: -10.4% -16.3%
1984: 3.7% -13.2%
1985: 7.8% -6.4%
1986: 1.6% -4.9%

So, in the years prior to the tax cut, inflation-adjusted revenue both
increased and decreased from a hight of 9.67% to a loss of 3.1%

Following the tax cuts, in year by year inflation adjusted rates, income
increased by as much as 6.37% (in 1987) to a decline of 6.06% (in 1983, the
first full year of the tax cuts, but came back to a 5.59% real increase
over inflation in the following year.

So, although revenues in 1981 were up 13.7% over revenue in 1980,
inflation in 1981 was 10.3%, thus real revenue only increased by 3.42%
compared to the prior year (which actually lost ground relative to
inflation). Even more telling are the inflation numbers which dropped from
double digit 10%+ down to around 4% in subsequent years.

Now, given these facts, how can one still spin them to show that revenue
was catastrophically reduced by the Reagan tax cuts?

The catastrophe was the debt grew by leaps and bounds immediately
after the tax cut, in large part because of the tax cut as evidenced
by the lower revenue in each of (post tax cut) 1982-86 compared to
(pre tax cut) 1981 (the cumulative effect is what impacts the debt).

Your analysis amounted to nothing more than noting single-year revenue
growth for a few selected years before the tax cut (9.67% in 1977,
-3.1% in 1980, 3.42% in 1981) and a few selected years after the tax
cut (6.37% in 1987, -6.06% in 1983, 5.59% in 1984). What meaning does
that have with regards to the debt?

Josh Rosenbluth