It's amazing to me how liberals distort data. If it's not climate models, it's economics. How in the world can these authors claim that tax revenues would have been higher without the Reagan tax cuts unless they can also prove that GDP would have stayed constant? In other words, they have to assume that the economy would not have been affected by much higher tax rates, which is absurd on its face. Of course, the whole premise of supply side economics is that you have to employ dynamic accounting, ie you have to take into account the effect tax rates have on growth.
American's are highly taxed. Comparing Federal rates from nation to nation is meaningless. Unlike Europe we have a slew of state taxes. Also American property taxes are much, much higher than Europe. Let's not even bring up gasoline though.......
Well, neither Reagan's nor GWB's tax cuts were able to make any dent or at least keep pace with their spending on the country's income statement. In fact, Reagan and the two Bushes* are collectively responsible for about 70% of America's national debt since inception in 1776. However you wish to play with the variables, it's not exactly a shining example of economic achievement or accomplishment. "Trickle down" economics probably approaches the polar opposite of communism. Neither fairy tale works in real life. Deal with it. * To be fair, Bush Sr. did not appear to subscribe to supply side economics. Coincidentally, and for what it's worth, he's the smarter of the two Bushes.
You seem to be collectively looking at spending and revenue as one in the same. They are separate. Spending in excess of revenue doesn't necesarily mean what created the revenue (or increase in revenue) doesn't/didn't work. It simply means that congress (as they have been doing for decades) spent money the treasury didn't have. They also have a habit of deficit spending when revenues are down.
I am well aware of the difference between expenditure and revenue. I am simply looking at what history has taught us. If you were in a drunken stupor, some of Karl Marx's theories might momentarily and vaguely make a bit of sense to you if he were to talk fast enough, but he would be hard pressed to provide you with historic examples of his theories having worked successfully in real life. And so it is with "trickle down" economics.
That gives me an idea, maybe I should try getting shit faced to see if it helps me momentarily understand what you're saying.
Government revenues increased DRAMATICALLY. It was the spending that was the problem. No one knows what the gov revenues would have been without the cuts, but likely LOWER. This can be measured with the cap gains changes however. When rates went to 28%, revenues DROPPED. When rates went to 15%, revenues EXPLODED. By the way, Case is a very liberal prof at an extremely liberal college, where he has been for 30 years. I'd take anything he says with a grain of salt.
This thread is getting to be downright funny, as well as illustrative of the type of fuzzy thinking of leftist economists and those who worship them. ( i'm talking about you thunderdog) I mean, really, we are being exposed to post after post, and reference after reference, to those who don't believe there is such a thing as incentives, who don't believe in such things as supply-demand curves, and call themselves economists. Note to morons: The entire concept of economics is based on the notion that there are differing points of demand at differing prices. (with the slight exception of those which are referred to as inelastic) It is indeed ludicrous to think of taxes as one of those cases of inelasticity.
You are assuming that the two are independent of one another. You need to take a step back and consider that spending indirectly contributes to revenues by a certain fraction. Therefore, you cannot look at either one in isolation and draw real world conclusions. Revenues would not have been as high had it not been for the spending, but the net result to the bottom line was negative. So while you can look at one variable in isolation in a laboratory setting, so to speak, we have yet to see trickle down economics having a positive effect on the overall economy in the real world.