There's no reason both couldn't be done simultaneously. Of course we'll need people in Washington that aren't career politicians to get it done.
There's plenty of reasons why spending cuts are more difficult, and advocating tax cuts BEFORE the budget is balanced is not fiscally conservative. You call yourself whatever you want: Republican, conservative, teabag person, whatever, but don't pretend you're a fiscal conservative as it just annoys people like me who are actual fiscal conservatives. The Republicans gave up fiscal conservatism a long time ago and adopted social conservatism. If you want to be part of that, go for it.
William A. Niskanen, one of the architects of Reaganomics, summarizes the policy as "Reagan delivered on each of his four major policy objectives, although not to the extent that he and his supporters had hoped", and notes that the most substantial change was in the tax code, where the top marginal individual income tax rate fell from 70% to 28%, and there was a "major reversal in the tax treatment of business income", with effect of "reducing the tax bias among types of investment but increasing the average effective tax rate on new investment."[2][3] The effect was primarily a change in the composition of tax revenue, towards payroll and new investment, and away from higher earners and capital gains on existing investments, with comparatively small effect on overall tax revenue: the changes "reduced the federal revenue share of GDP from 20.2 percent in fiscal 1981 to 19.2 percent in fiscal 1989," a 1% reduction. I guess you are of the "historical revisionist" school? LOL!!! It's okay biggaydave. We can sweep this one under the carpet... The problem is that the pile under your proverbial "carpet" is starting to look like more of a landfill. ROFLMAO!!!
LOL!!! gaydave is playing "how many times in one night can I make an idiot of myself". LOL!! Yes, the huge bridge collapsing epidemic. If you want to see shitty bridges, go to Canada!! THOSE guys have shitty bridges!! The fact is federal funds do not pay for bridges except for on interstates. Sometimes other random places like national reserves, etc. State and county funds (sometimes, but more rarely, municipal funds) pay for bridges which aren't on interstates. (of course you'd probably have to be an american to know that). Hence, even if this anomalous bridge collapsing epidemic did exist , it would be because the federal taxes are too high and are taking revenue which SHOULD be going to states and counties. Most bridges are built from state income and sales tax revenue, or county property taxes. NOT federal funds. Congratulations, you are batting 1000 tonight. ROFLMAO! Consider that when you're blowing smoke out of your ass, that you don't know who you are talking to. For example, you could be talking to someone who is familiar with the bridge business.
It looks like you're referring to the 1986 tax cut for the statutory rate reduction, while I'm addressing his 1981 tax cut. So I'll concede the point and state that you are right on the essence and I am wrong.
LOL!!I didn't revise anything. You did, however. You are so ignorant that you only read about the FIRST tax cut. The tax reform of 1981. The second reagan tax cut, in 1986 cut the top rate to 28%, like I said. ROFLMAO!! Yet another example of your misrepresentation of facts to support your views... From YOUR LINK: "The culmination of this effort was the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which brought the top statutory tax rate down from 50 percent to 28 percent while the corporate tax rate was reduced from 50 percent to 35 percent. " Read your own shit next time corky!!!! This is almost as bad as your defense of Cuba's high standard of living!!! LOL!!! LOL!!! LOL!!! You are the most ignorant waste of an orgasm I have seen in a long time. I almost feel bad laughing at you, you know, the sense of guilt you would feel laughing at a retard??? But I still can't help but laugh... I'm pretty sure this is what you call getting "punk'd". LOL!! William A. Niskanen, one of the architects of Reaganomics, summarizes the policy as "Reagan delivered on each of his four major policy objectives, although not to the extent that he and his supporters had hoped", and notes that the most substantial change was in the tax code, where the top marginal individual income tax rate fell from 70% to 28%, and there was a "major reversal in the tax treatment of business income", with effect of "reducing the tax bias among types of investment but increasing the average effective tax rate on new investment."[2][3] The effect was primarily a change in the composition of tax revenue, towards payroll and new investment, and away from higher earners and capital gains on existing investments, with comparatively small effect on overall tax revenue: the changes "reduced the federal revenue share of GDP from 20.2 percent in fiscal 1981 to 19.2 percent in fiscal 1989," a 1% reduction.
I edited my other post before I saw yours, but yes, I'll concede the point that for a while the statutory rate was 28%, although we were discussing the marginal rate. But at least you were right in many respects. It's more complicated than just "28%" of course, but then we have to start discussing the "bubble rate" and the difference between that and the marginal rate. I'll just concede that because it's not worth getting into and rephrase as "Let's return to the tax rates under Reagan before 1986."
I guess if it makes you feel better to lick your wounds by all that meaningless claptrap, go ahead. Of course it's more complicated, just like it's more complicated than "just 37%" now. However, the top individual marginal rate WAS 28% . We weren't having any confusion between marginal/statutory. That's just some obfuscation you are throwing in to try to hide the fact that you were wrong. You are wrong about this, just like you are wrong about many of your other positions, yet you will either not admit you have been defeated well after it's decisive, and desperately try to find what end up being increasingly irrational defenses to your arguments. I hope that you learned your lesson here, and maybe experienced a bit of enlightenment... The lesson, in case you still haven't picked up on it, is that many of your views are based on cognitive or factual errors, and logical fallacies. You're welcome.
Kind of, sort of, yes. The top marginal rate was 28%, but the bubble rate was implemented to push higher income earners to a flat 28% on ALL income, not just marginal income. So you're technically correct, while being essentially wrong. But you are technically correct so I'm conceding the point. The reason you find this "claptrap" is because you rarely really grasp my posts. Again, I'm more than willing to write "you're right, I'm wrong" and just restate my position as "tax rates before 1986." But even then that would hurt the deficit -- we could go back to the good old Eisenhower tax rates and eliminate the deficit pretty quickly. That's fiscal conservatism.
Going back to the Eisenhower rates wouldn't solve the problem for two reasons: (1) The highest rates didn't kick in until you made over $200k per year, which would be about $3M/year in today's dollars. Very few people make that kind of money. Certainly not enough to make a dent in a trillion dollar deficit. (2) There never really were any high tax rates because even though there were "published" tax rates of 70-90%, nobody ever paid taxes at those rates. Back in the 1950s-1960s, there was something called "leveraged non-recourse tax shelters." A study by the IRS in 2003 showed that the richest 1% of people in the country paid about 25% of their income in federal taxes during those high tax rate periods. They dramatically lowered their actual taxes paid through the use of tax shelters. When Reagan lowered tax rates he also eliminated most tax shelters.