The Economic Crisis: What Would Reagan Do?

I think the answer is clear from a 1985 speech that President Reagan gave from the Oval Office:

"In 1981, our critics charged that letting you keep more of your earnings would trigger an inflationary explosion, send interest rates soaring, and destroy our economy. Well, we cut your tax rates anyway, by nearly 25%. What what helped trigger was falling inflation, falling interest rates, and the strongest economic expansion in 30 years. Over the course of this century, our tax system has been modified dozens of times and in hundreds of ways. Yet, most of those changes didn't improve the system. They made it more like Washington itself- complicated, unfair, cluttered with "gobbeldy-gook" and loopholes designed for those with the power and influence to hire high-priced legal and tax advisors.


But there's more to it than that. Some years ago, a historian from the past said that every time a government began taxing at a certain level above the people's earnings, trust in government began to erode. He said it would begin with efforts to avoid paying the full tax. This would become outright cheating, and eventually a distrust and contempt of government itself, until there would be a breakdown in law and order.


How many times have we heard people brag about clever schemes to avoid paying taxes? Or watch luxuries casually written off to be paid for by somebody else? That somebody being you. I believe that in both spirit and substance, our tax system has come to be Un-American.
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"How would [my] proposal work? The present tax system has 14 different brackets of tax rates ranging from 11-50%. We would take a giant step towards an ideal system by replacing all that with a simple three bracket system, with tax rates of 15, 25, and 35 percent. By lowering everyone's tax rates ALL THE WAY UP THE INCOME SCALE, each of us will have a greater incentive to climb higher, to excel, to help America grow.
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"The power of these incentives would send one simple, straightforward message to an entire nation: America, go for it!"

*Recall that as a Senator, Barack Obama has voted against tax cuts over 90 times!!! Also recall that his running mate, Joe Biden, said that paying higher taxes is "patriotic." For Reagan's sake, I'm glad that he was no longer alive to hear such rhetoric.
It would have absolutely made his skin crawl!