the end of that clip was pretty funny jesse watters went from a waste of time to becoming sort of entertaining the last few times I have seen him.
If you are interested in whats happening to the middle class, look for a charts of after tax income (rather than average tax rate) in constant 1965 dollars, versus year since 1965, by Quintiles of gross income. You'll need to look at a separate chart for each quintile.
You'll need to look specifically at the lowest bracket of the middle class throughout the 1980's, those making just enough to pay some income taxes, if you want to understand what the effect of the Reagan tax cuts was on this cohort. For those cohorts that pay at least some income tax, what's important is net income after taxes. This is more important than income tax rate.
Arnie is showing "effective" tax rates based on gross income, rather than taxable income --and an average rate at that. "Misleading and not helpful" would be an understatement. What we should hope for is to be one of those lucky ones who owe millions in federal taxes each year!
Why is that Reagan's fault? Net income after taxes has two components, income and taxes. And don't forget, those tax cuts were passed by a democrat congress. This is about as tiresome as listening to obsessive whining about the Bush-Gore Florida recount. it's ancient history. Let it go. Reagan was our greatest modern president. Obama and Carter were the two worst. Revisionist nitpicking about effective tax rates won't change that.
Unless we understand how we got here, we can't fix it. Of course there are plenty who believe that there is nothing to be fixed. I assume you're one of them since you think Reagan -- the guy who put us on the road to all this debt -- was such a great president. In which case, I'll let you go back to counting your money.
Partisan idiots like db blame EVERYTHING on the republicans. I remember GW being blamed for a tsunami.